The National Football League is expected to announce the cancellation of half of the preseason games scheduled for this summer in light of the rising COVID-19 breakout across the nation.
Games scheduled for Week 1 and Week 4 are likely to be canceled outright with teams playing one home and one away matchup over Week 2 and Week 3.
However, the NFL Players’s Association remains opposed to playing the exhibition games altogether and has discussed possible alternatives.
NFL.com’s Tom Pelissero has reported a proposed training camp schedule should the preseason games be scratched in 2020.
“3 days: medical/equipment
21 days: strength & conditioning
10 days: unpadded practice
14 days: practice (10 max/8 padded),” Pelissero tweeted.
“Then it’d be straight into Week 1 (of the regular season).”
With the NFLPA still opposed to preseason games, one possible camp schedule the union has discussed:
3 days: medical/equipment
21 days: strength & conditioning
10 days: unpadded practice
14 days: practice (10 max/8 padded)Then it’d be straight into Week 1.
— Tom Pelissero (@TomPelissero) July 3, 2020
Pelissero also noted the number of players participating in each phase of the program would be greatly reduced, for instance, only five players at a time for strength and conditioning workouts and up to 40 in unpadded practices.
With camps set to begin on July 28, the NFL and NFLPA now have less than a month to come to any sort of compromise and the clock is ticking.
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