As more sports leagues, including the NFL, work to open up again in the face of a global pandemic, concerns about player safety remain at the forefront of the leagues and the players themselves. As professional baseball teams are beginning to practice again, some well-known players have chosen to opt out of playing in the season ahead, including David Price and Ryan Zimmerman, Even Mike Trout, one of the game’s premier stars, has expressed reservations.
According to a report Wednesday from Tom Pelissero of the NFL Network, the league and the NFLPA are working on a player opt out provision for those athletes who are considering sitting out the 2020 season due to concerns over COVID-19. Pelissero reported this on “NFL Now,” giving the following information:
My understanding is both the union and the league intend to have an opt-out for players who have either a pre-existing condition, family (members) with pre-existing conditions, just general concerns over COVID-19, would not want to play this season. General managers were told on a call earlier this week there would be a specific date by which players would need to opt-out. That date is still to be determined.
While no NFL players have definitively stated a desire to sit out the season due to concerns over COVID-19, some players have expressed reservations. On their “Double Coverage” podcast, Devin and Jason McCourty of the New England Patriots discussed the potential difficulties of getting a full 90-player roster together for training camp. More recently Stefon Diggs, an offseason acquisition by the Buffalo Bills, took to Twitter to share his concerns about starting back up:
But there’s so many unanswered questions with this upcoming season. I’d be lying if I said I was comfortable starting back up..
— DIGGS (@stefondiggs) July 7, 2020
There are so many moving pieces regarding starting the season back up, and chief among them is player safety and how comfortable the individual players – and their families – are about potential exposure to COVID-19. Making these issues all the more difficult to deal with is the fact that this is not a “one size fits all” situation, as factors on the ground in various parts of the country differ wildly from state to state. For example, New York was one of the nation’s more precarious situations a few months ago, and now that state is enforcing mandatory 14-day quarantine periods for travelers from other states, such as California, Florida and Arizona. How that impacts players trying to get to Buffalo, for example, for training camp remains to be seen.
As the league and the NFLPA look to work on potential opt out provisions, it is yet another reminder that the 2020 NFL season will be unlike any we have seen in recent history.