NFL teams, including the Buffalo Bills, will have their will have their full roster at team facilities no later than July 28. That’s about a week away, and it appears the league and players union finally came together on a big agreement in regard to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
According to multiple reports, the NFL and NFLPA have agree to daily COVID-19 testing when training camps starts. The daily tests will happen for the first two weeks of training camp. After that, if positive tests are below five percent in the league, tests will move to every other day.
While an important hurdle for teams and players to come together in agreement on, we’re not in the clear yet. There’s still other measures that must be agree upon between this pair. Of those, some include other preventive measures to stop the spread of the virus within teams, such as potential changes to helmets, the owners allowing players to opt-out of playing, and how the preseason is structured.
The NFL has already canceled two of its four preseason weeks, and the players have asked for all preseason games to be canceled this year as they have requested a training camp acclimation period that would limit the first 21 days to strength and conditioning work only, the following 10 days to non-padded practices and then full contact over the final 14 days.
Most recently, two Bills players, Micah Hyde and Stefon Diggs, joined a group of numerous NFL players starting a social media campaign to put some pressure on the league’s owners to get these protocols and resolutions solved. Each message on social media by players were accompanied by the hashtag: “We Want To Play,” but naturally Hyde, Diggs, and every other player wants to feel safe in doing so.
Stay tuned to Bills Wire for the latest news on the NFL’s return to play.
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