NFL, players agree on testing

The NFL and its players cleared one hurdle Monday on the way toward opening training camps.

The league and the NFL Players Association agreed on daily COVID-19 testing for the first two weeks of training camp. After those two weeks, if the positive test rate is below 5 percent, testing would be reduced to every other day. If the test rate remains at 5 percent or above, testing will continue daily. Testing would then only be reduced if the test rate drops below 5 percent and it would return to daily testing if it rises to 5 percent or higher.

“This is ongoing work,” Dr. Allen Sills, the league’s chief medical officer, said. “There’s no finish line with health and safety, and I think these protocols are living, breathing documents, which means they will change as we get new information. They will undoubtedly be changing over time, which is what we usually see in medicine.”

Players and team employees will be required to test negative twice before being allowed into the team’s training center for the first time. The expectation is test results will come back within 24 hours. The NFL is using Bio-Reference Laboratories to handle the tests.

The agreement comes a day after several high-profile players used social media to express their displeasure with the NFL’s approach to player health in regard to training camp.

Rookies began reporting to training camp on Monday with the Texans and Chiefs the first team to have rookies report. Other teams, including the Jets, will have their rookies report Tuesday. Full teams are scheduled to report on July 28.

With the testing issue resolved, there are still other items the two sides must agree on, including the number of preseason games and how long the acclimation period will be when players report to camp.