While states like California. under the leadership of Governor Gavin Newsom, and Washington, under Governor Jay Inslee, are adhering to shelter-in-place guidelines, other states have been far more cavalier. Georgia, under Governor Brian Kemp, and Florida, under Ron DeSantis, have seen things in different ways.
Obviously, the complications for the NFL inherent in trying to get every state holding one or more teams on the same page is impossible. So, what happens if America’s more cautious states have flattened the curve by late summer, and the “YOLO” states have not? It would not be a favorable situation for those latter states, and for reasons far more important than football, but it would also throw a serious wrench into the league’s scheduling process.
The Seahawks have a perfect (or, shall we say, imperfect) example in that they are supposed to travel to Atlanta to take on the Falcons in Week 1 on September 13. But what if the Seahawks’ home state is far ahead of the curve, and the Falcons’ isn’t? It’s easy enough to switch the game to Seattle, we suppose, but what if Kemp’s lack of caution has Georgia in a dire situation? Again, football would be far from the most important consideration at that point, but as this is a football site and we’re talking football here, this is where we are. The Seahawks are also supposed to travel to Miami to meet the Dolphins in Week 4.
Yikes, potentially.
Under those conditions, the Falcons have home games against the Seahawks, Bears, Panthers, Lions, and Broncos before their Week 10 bye. Let’s say it’s not entirely safe to play football in the state of Georgia at that point. We certainly and obviously hope that isn’t the case, but it could be. Would the NFL consider moving teams in less cautious states to different states in which the curve has been flattened in a relative sense?
There has been no situation remotely like the coronavirus pandemic in the league’s history, but there is a precedent for moving a team for health and safety reasons.
In 2005, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the Saints moved the entire franchise operation to San Antonio for the entire season. The team’s first “home” game of the season was played at Giants Stadium against the Giants, which was kind of weird. For the rest of the season, the Saints alternated between San Antonio’s Alamodome, and LSU’s Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge.
The NFL has also sent its teams across the pond for years, creating a scenario in which half the teams competing in Europe lose an actual home game, so it’s not out of the realm of possibility that the league could set up contingencies in which the full schedule could play out in different, more cautious states.
It’s not the ideal situation, of course, but it’s one possibility.