NFL: Players’ union is ‘inaccurate and misleading’ on issues
Message from the NFL to the players’ union: get your facts straight.
The league fired back at the NFL Players’ Association in a strongly worded memo Wednesday to teams about the ongoing fight over players’ in-person offseason work.
The NFL said the union has made an “inaccurate and misleading” claim that the virtual 2020 offseason led to significantly decreased injury rates last season.
The league also said that the collaborative process of advancing player health and safety “requires honest assessments based on reliable data — not cherry-picked efforts to support predetermined and unscientific conclusions.”
The NFL’s loss of patience was palpable in a memo that undoubtedly will draw a response from the players.
The NFLPA is fighting for an entirely virtual 2021 offseason prior to training camps, foregoing voluntary OTAs and mandatory minicamps.
Some players have shown up to facilities anyway or intend to for the start of Phase Two in mid-May, but a majority have stayed away citing the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and last year’s injury data.
The union repeatedly has referred to a “23% decrease in missed time injuries” as proof that the virtual 2020 season should be the norm to protect players’ bodies.
The NFL has a problem with the NFLPA drawing that conclusion from “the objective data provided by experts jointly retained by the league and union.”
“This fails to account for the fact that the pandemic resulted in the cancellation of all four preseason games and reduced the number of traditional training camp practices,” said the memo sent by the NFL Management Council and Player Health and Safety department. “There is simply no basis on which to conclude that the reduction in missed time injuries had anything to do with the elimination of the in-person offseason program.”
The league added: “In fact, several types of injuries — especially those to the lower extremities — were up in the first four weeks of the regular season in 2020.”
The NFL cited data in its attempt to dispel union claims that the league either called incomplete, misleading or incorrect:
statement:
“All categories of lower extremity strains fall within [the] five-year average”
NFL response: “Lower extremity strains increased more than 30% in the 2020 regular season when compared with the average number of such injuries from the 20172019 seasons. As one example, Week 2 of the 2020 regular season saw the highest number of missed time lower extremity strains since 2015.”
NFLPA claim: The number of “ACL tears [sustained in the 2020 season] fall within [the] five year average”
NFL response: “More players suffered an ACL tear during the 2020 regular season than in any of the previous five seasons. In fact, NFL players sustained 33% more ACL tears in 2020 than the average number of ACL tears from the 2015 through 2019 seasons.”
The league also fought back against the union citing a “30% reduction in concussions.”
“There were 52 fewer concussions sustained in the 2020 season than there were in the 2019 season,” the NFL admitted. “But only [eight] concussions were sustained during the 2019 offseason program.
“The jointly-retained experts attribute the reduction in concussions to a number of factors — including the lack of preseason games, other training camp modifications, increased adoption of better helmets and rules changes and enforcement during the 2020 season — not to the lack of an offseason program, when live contact between players is prohibited by the CBA,” the NFL wrote.
“As you know, in recent years we have worked closely with the NFLPA to ensure that the rules governing the off-season program are properly enforced and will do so this year as well,” the league continued. “Indeed, concussions decreased by 25% in each of the last three seasons as a result of these efforts, rules changes and better equipment choices.”
The league already amended its 2021 offseason schedule to remove any on-field requirement from Phase One, which started Monday and runs through May 14.
But Phase Two begins May 17, and on-field drills with coaches will be allowed beginning on that date. Phase Three with traditional OTAs then is scheduled to begin May 24.
So this fight has only begun, and as the NFL’s latest memo indicates, patience is wearing thin.