The NFL is mulling over ideas on how to play the 2020 schedule despite the complications arising from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Even though the NFL will conduct its annual draft on April 23-25 in a virtual setting, even teams are staying away from their facilities for social distancing purposes, Houston Texans coach Bill O’Brien believes life will return to normal and there will be football eventually.
However, the seventh-year coach doesn’t want to rush matters and endanger lives at the expense of kicking the ball off the tee in September.
“In my opinion, just my opinion, before we let people back into stadium and things like that, we better have the testing down, we better be on our way to a vaccine,” O’Brien told the Houston media on a conference call on April 16. “I don’t think you’re going to be able to move forward until we have a better grasp of the whole thing.”
The COVID-19 pandemic’s effect has been unequally distributed. For instance, according to Worldometers, the state of New York leads the United States with 241,041 confirmed COVID-19 cases as of 12:40 a.m. ET on April 18. However, the state of Texas only has 18,679 cases. Minnesota is the only state with an NFL team and the fewest number of cases at 2,213.
What if states such as Texas and Minnesota are the next hot spots waiting to happen?
Said O’Brien: “We can’t be in a rush. I think life as we know it is going to change and we can’t be in a rush. We’ll play football at some point. We will definitely play football. When that is, who knows, but we’ll just keep doing what we have to do to stay up with the competition and when they tell us to get ready to play, we’ll try to get ready to play.”
In the meantime, O’Brien, who is now the fourth full-time general manager in Texans history, is enjoying the simple things in life during the social distancing period, including spending more time with his family and working on improving the Texans’ roster from the back patio of his Houston home.
When the world is back to normal, O’Brien, the Texans, and the rest of the NFL hope to be back to football.