NFL commissioner Roger Goodell recently sent out a memo to all 32 NFL teams detailing the path and protocols to opening team facilities. The plan laid out by commissioner includes multi-phase guidelines that can be adapted and altered as necessary to meet the needs of individual teams based on state and local public health guidelines related to the COVID-19 pandemic. He also notes that this plan is being laid out in coordination with the NFLPA.
“While these protocols have been carefully developed and reflect best practices,” Goodell wrote via the AP, “they can also be adapted and supplemented to ensure compliance with any state and local public health requirements.”
Here are the step-by-step requirements for reopening currently laid out by the NFL according to the AP:
1. Local and state government officials must consent to reopening.
2. The team must implement all operational guidelines set by the league to minimize the risk of virus transmission among employees.
3. Each club must acquire adequate amounts of needed supplies as prescribed by the league.
4. An Infection Response Team with a written plan for newly diagnosed coronavirus cases. –An Infection Control Officer to oversee all aspects of the implementation of the listed guidelines.
5. Each employee who returns to work at the club facility must receive COVID-19 safety and hygiene training prior to using the facility, and agree to report health information to the ICO.
6. The response team must consist of a local physician with expertise in common infectious disease principles; the team physician can fill that role. Also on the response team will be the infection control officer, the team’s head athletic trainer; the team physician, if he or she is not serving as the local physician; the human resources director; the team’s chief of security; its mental health clinician or someone with equivalent clinical expertise; and a member of the club’s operations staff such as the facility manager.
The NFL is asking that teams have these protocols in place and ready to go by May 15, which follows the conclusion of the “virtual offseason program” that teams are currently participating in. The first phase of the protocols includes non-player employees returning to work, and they’ll have certain guidelines to follow, such as wearing face coverings in their workspace.
It’s also worth noting that the NFL won’t allow for individual teams to reopen until each team is eligible to reopen their facilities. They’ll remain at the mercy of local and state governments on that matter.
The league appears proactive in their attempts to ensure they’ll be able to start the regular season on time, but Goodell also noted in his memo that it’s, “impossible to project what the next few months will bring.”
For now, we’ll be watching and waiting to see how things progress.
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