NFL lacks a clear COVID-19 plan
Like every other league trying to play sports in the middle of a historic pandemic, the NFL was presented with one of the greatest challenges in its history earlier this year. But it also had the most time to figure out all the logistics of how to play a season with COVID-19 still looming as a threat.
And yet, on the eve of rookies reporting to camp in some cities, a social media campaign coordinated among a number of high-profile players popped up Sunday suggesting that there’s still quite a lot to learn – and negotiate – about safety protocols before full training camp opens on July 28. From Russell Wilson to Carson Wentz to Richard Sherman to dozens of other stars, the message was clear: There’s no room to compromise on the steps necessary to mitigate the chances that players would contract the coronavirus and potentially spread it to their families.
As J.J. Watt and others posted on Twitter, players are preparing to report while still unsure about what kind of training camp acclimation period they’ll have, how often they’ll be tested for COVID-19, what happens to other players on a team after someone tests positive and what happens contractually if a player opts out of the season because they or someone in their family is at higher risk of complications.
In the COVID-19 era, these are fairly fundamental issues. Still, despite having the most runway to work them out, the NFL has apparently done the least over the last four months as very important deadlines suddenly come into view. How in the world does that happen?
Ultimately, there’s so much at stake for the NFL and its players that it’s hard to imagine either side letting a football season fall apart before teams even try to see if they can manage these unusual circumstances. Whatever risks players assume by trying to play football right now are attached to significant financial incentives that they will not easily give up. Both the league and the players’ association should be motivated to get this worked out and to do the very best they can to provide a safe environment.
At the same time, players deserve to know what they’re getting into. They deserve the right to carefully consider just how much risk they’re taking on by showing up to work. And the fact that the most urgent piece of business necessary for professional football to be played this year is still not settled by this point raises some alarm bells about the league’s ability to manage the unique threat of this virus.
For all the conversation in sports about the NBA’s bubble, the unique challenges of college football or even the drastic measures the United States Tennis Association is taking so that a U.S.
Open can be played next month, the fundamental question about the NFL – how are they going to pull it off? – has largely flown under the radar.
Maybe that’s because fans tend to assume that the money is so massive, and the sport so inherently risky to begin with, that teams will just power through the pandemic and make it happen.
But unlike two months ago when it appeared the country was headed toward a much smaller number of COVID-19 cases by the end of summer, the coronavirus is still here. It’s here in big numbers in some states like Texas, Florida and California. And it’s still a threat to infect NFL players, at least 72 of which have already had it at some point in the past few months.
What makes the NFL’s lack of a clear COVID-19 plan so puzzling, though, is that the key dynamic of this issue hasn’t changed: The NFL isn’t going to pack up and move to New Zealand to play a season, and it simply can’t create a bubble out at some resort to accommodate 32 teams and keep the rest of the world out.
That means NFL players, just like the rest of us, are going to have to go to work and go home and try to remain healthy and wonder whether any interaction with the outside world is going to put themselves or their families at risk of a highly contagious, unpredictable and dangerous virus. That dynamic hasn’t changed over the last for months. And even for all the money players make, I would no more expect them to show up to work without understanding the precautions their employers were taking than I would anyone else.
Whether the NFL has been dragging its feet or simply ensnared in a prolonged back-and-forth with a players’ union that decided to finally apply some public pressure Sunday no longer matters.
The NFL still has a chance to work this out before the problems begin to get very real. From the very beginning of the pandemic, the NFL had the luxury of time being on its side. Suddenly, the clock is ticking.