The ability to work in the NFL is a gift. There is the thrill of the games, the exhilaration of getting a contract done with a key player, or the moment a player slips to you in the draft when you thought he was out of reach. Most of the time, though, your responsibility as an NFL executive is dealing with the same type of details and plans that are a part of any other job when the world enters an unpredictable phase. That’s what front offices feel like when you don’t know when the league year will start, what the rules are, dates and location of the draft, and whether the 2020 season will happen as planned.
Let’s briefly revisit September 2001 to see if it may inform the types of decisions the league and its teams face today with the coronavirus pandemic. I was the Eagles’ team president at the time of 9/11. The biggest decision then was whether to play regular-season games or postpone them. The league ultimately decided to postpone the Week 2 games and to play them at the end of the regular season and push the playoffs a week back as well. The similarity here is that all the open questions are totally in the hands of the league, and the execution of those decisions is left to the teams. There are a few committees and some trusted owners that the league will consult with, but otherwise, you are just sitting by the phone waiting for answers.
The league is likely to have developed a policy or at least a guideline for almost anything you can imagine. It is the same with the well-run teams. When I was with the Eagles, we had an internal group that I would bring together when things happened that might upset the timing of the calendar at any given point. We would make a list of all the possible things that could come up, and have subgroups start to gather information or begin to put a plan together that we could implement.
Right now, that’s a long list of possibilities. That’s really the biggest challenge for team planning at this moment. You would want your group to plan for outcomes in the next few days, as well as those as far out as training camp and the regular season.
Other than being ready for all outcomes, there is not much you can do right now, and you have no control over the most important decisions.
Banner: Players may have regretted rejecting owners’ CBA offer
I recently spoke with someone from the league whom I trust. This person said that it was a 95% possibility that the league year and free agency would start as scheduled, which has proven out. The draft will happen on time, but some question whether it will be a major public event as it has been in recent years. We are at least 3-4 months away from any decisions on preseason games and longer than that on the regular season.
I also called two teams regarding their future planning. The answer was nothing. Both teams had taken scouts off the road (as all teams have) and have people working from home. This was decided over the past week, and the people I spoke with feel like it’s months from having anything else to figure out.
The possibility that the pandemic could get a lot worse before it gets better is an argument for keeping free agency on schedule, so it doesn’t affect the draft or offseason workouts when conditions get better. On the other hand, some elements of free agency — most clearly player physicals — would need to be dealt with differently than usual. I don’t think the league will or should be driven by optics. The league should make a prudent decision that is driven by health concerns and that preserves their future plans if things are better in a few months. The truth is that optics are likely to be awful for a fairly long time.
Everything is different than it was just a month ago, and the offseason schedule for the NFL is not getting a pass. Time and circumstances will answer some of the future questions and others will fire up the second-guessers who may not have anything else to talk about.
It’s a good time to not be a decision-maker, when it is so easy to be criticized no matter which way you go. Either way, it’s a no-win situation.
Joe Banner served as president of the Philadelphia Eagles from 1995 through 2012. He also served as CEO of the Cleveland Browns in 2012 and 2013 and worked as a front office consultant for the Atlanta Falcons in 2014 and 2015. In 2001, Banner received a “PARTNERS Leadership Award” from the University of Pennsylvania for extensive community service, including reading to students in Boston public schools and spending time with severely ill youths at Boston Children’s Hospital. He also has been heavily involved, in Boston and Philadelphia, with City Year, a program based on volunteers who commit to a year of full-time work.
