There’s no guarantee the NFL will have a season in 2020.
Despite the league office’s current behavior and their insistence the show will go on, there’s growing concern it may not be feasible as the issues surrounding the Covid-19 pandemic have not been resolved.
On Thursday, Dr. Anthony Fauci made a statement that was less than encouraging for those hoping for some football normalcy come fall, saying, “Unless players are essentially in a bubble — insulated from the community and they are tested nearly every day — it would be very hard to see how football is able to be played this fall.”
The NBA’s return is set for the end of July with 22 teams heading into a bubble courtesy of Disney in Orlando. That’s a massive undertaking and includes a 113 page guidebook for health and safety. That kind of setting doesn’t exist for the NFL. With 32 teams carrying over 60 players on the roster including practice squads, massive coaching and training staffs, the scope of the problem is incredible.
NBA rosters are just 12 per team.
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and the 32 owners will have to devise some level of plan over the next month before training camps can open in July.
Already mandated to train in their own facilities, some teams are going to be better able to work with social distancing guidelines. The Dallas Cowboys, for instance, have facilities at the Ford Center with multiple locker rooms thanks to hosting high school football games at the complex. Not every team has the type of sprawling complex which can be utilized to this degree.
Beyond that, testing procedures with almost instantaneous results for anyone who travels outside the facility and interacts with others would be imperative if players are not isolated with each other.
However this plays out will be footnoted in the annals of football history.
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