Self-discipline key to NFL season
Personal responsibility looms as perhaps the ultimate X-factor as the bulk of NFL teams open training camps this week in preparation for a season unlike any other.
With COVID-19 spreading, there are protocols and checkpoints. Daily testing and the ubiquitous presence of hand sanitizers. Warnings and more warnings.
What’s good for NFL players is good for all of us: Wear a mask. Wash your hands.
Yet as the nation’s most popular sports league ramps up with a massive effort to fight the coronavirus pandemic, the chances of the NFL pulling off its season could come down to how diligent hundreds of young men are at minimizing risk.
Not to say that the pro football lifestyle depicted on HBO’s fictional series “Ballers” represents the bulk of NFL players, but the temptation of the fast lane is hardly fiction.
Given the buzz this week following the revelation that Clippers guard Lou Williams visited a famed Atlanta strip club, Magic City, while granted permission to leave the NBA’s bubble in the Orlando, Florida, area, there’s fresh material for NFL coaches to use in their typical camp-opening monologues about behavior.
Then again, with this coronavirus, a person can flow in the slowest lane possible and still get stricken because they ventured to the wrong place – a grocery store, bank, fast-food restaurant, dry cleaners or any mundane location that can be frequented on a ho-hum day – at the wrong time.
The threat in an NFL context is that an infected person, maybe asymptomatic, somehow slips through the cracks of the virus safeguards and ignites an outbreak.
“It’s hard to say what it would take to shut everything down, but I’d imagine if you had a mass breakout, you’re going to have some big questions,” Washington coach Ron Rivera said Tuesday as he christened the opening of camp. “We’ll have to see. In the meantime, we’ve got to make sure we’re following all the protocols that have been set forth by the CDC and by the NFL and (NFL Players Association). We’ve got to be really careful with this and be smart.”
An ominous warning sign has come from Major League Baseball, forced to
postpone several games and suspend the Marlins’ season after more than a dozen players and staff tested positive for COVID-19. The specific source of the Marlins’ outbreak is unclear, though Jill Roberts, an infectious disease expert at the University of South Florida, told USA TODAY Sports’ Gabe Lacques, “Chances are really good this came out of Miami.”
Buccaneers coach Bruce Arians downplayed concern that his Tampa Bay team could be victimized by a certain kind of outbreak: “I don’t think our guys are going to get sick in the locker room. I don’t think they’ll get sick in our facility. Everybody here is tested;
they’re clean. If it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen outside the facility.”
Surely, that’s what the NFL is waging high stakes on, with daily testing for at least two weeks and perhaps longer. The threat, however, could escalate with, say, a faulty test result.
Perhaps it is only a matter of time before the NFL is addressing an outbreak of its own. League officials are mulling several factors that could prompt postponing or canceling games, or even suspending the season, a person with knowledge of discussions told USA TODAY Sports. The person did not want to be identified because plans have not been finalized.
Factors that could prompt the application of the league’s Emergencies and Unfair Acts policy include postponing a game because an entire position group was stricken by COVID-19. If 10 or more games in a given week cannot be played, the NFL could reschedule the entire slate of games for a week. Also, if six or more clubs can’t play for multiple weeks, it could potentially prompt the NFL to suspend the season.
None of the factors are etched into stone as policy at this point, but the markers give an indication of how the league might address COVID-19 outbreaks during the season.
It’s clear, though, that regardless of the contingency plans, the onus on players to reduce risk is significant. The Bill Belichick mantra “Do your job” means more than holding a block.
When the Lions reported for camp, they were greeted by signage at their COVID-19 testing trailer that included: Do your part. Protect yourself. Protect your team.
Such expectations are also spelled out in the COVID-19 labor pact struck recently between the NFL and the NFLPA. Players are subject to discipline if it is proved they contracted the coronavirus by engaging in “high-risk” behavior that includes presence at nightclubs, bars, house parties and religious services that include more than 15 people.
Seems the NFL and the proactive players union have covered it all.
The COVID-19 playbook is rolling with self-discipline. Now we’ll see just how well the human element can match up in fighting the coronavirus.