Sports leagues across the globe made the difficult — but necessary — decision to suspend their seasons amid the global coronavirus pandemic. But they will face a decidedly more difficult decision in the future when it comes to determining how and when to resume play.
Given that COVID-19 is a disease caused by the novel coronavirus, there’s no immunity for those who haven’t been infected. There’s no vaccine yet, and it could be a year (or longer) before a vaccine gets approved for the general population.
This poses an uncertain reality for any league that looks to resume play, and that includes the NFL — despite having a regular season that doesn’t start for five months.
Still, there is a sense of optimism that NFL football will be played this year in some form — possibly without fans. NFL Players Association medical director Thom Mayer told ESPN’s Adam Schefter in a podcast interview this week that the union and league are hopeful about the 2020 season happening.
He said via ESPN:
“So all that stuff on our side is going through, and obviously we’ve encouraged the league to do their side and provide a safe environment, including how do we play games and what that might look like,” he said. “So I’m optimistic by nature. We’re smart people in America, and I think we can get this done.”
Mayer added that the NFL won’t be able to fully evaluate the situation until May or June, but they have created scheduling models that account for months of social-distancing measures. Mayer also considered the possibility of playing games without fans or screening fans at the gate, which would be a time-consuming — and flawed — strategy that wouldn’t account for asymptomatic fans.
Mayer wondered what games might look like if the league plays this season and if it could be similar to what “the NBA was thinking about, you could have games but not people in the stadium. How could you safely get people into the stadium? Does that involve taking temperatures, other screening procedures.”
But at the very least, there’s a decent chance of football happening.
You can read the full report here.
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