Per Tom Pelissero of the NFL Network, the NFL and its 32 teams have agreed that under the current Collective Bargaining Agreement, training camp will start on time. This means that rookies will report on July 21, quarterbacks and injured players on July 23, and all other players on July 28. The dates are applicable for all teams except for the Texans and Chiefs, who will report earlier as the two teams are scheduled to start the regular season on Thursday, September 10. Chiefs rookies and quarterbacks will report Monday, July 20, as will Texans rookies.
Also per Pelissero, “As of now, only 20 players would be allowed in the facility at a time, until the NFLPA signs off on infectious disease emergency response plans for each club. If protocols aren’t met, a grievance could follow. But clubs have the right to set reporting dates within CBA rules.”
That caveat is indicative of how many moving parts there are when scheduling things in the middle of a coronavirus pandemic, and how many things have not yet been decided between the NFL and the NFLPA to date.
In a Friday conference call with national media, NFLPA Executive Director DeMaurice Smith, Assistant Executive Director of External Affairs George Atallah, and President JC Tretter (who is also the center for the Cleveland Browns) discussed where things stand at this point regarding the safety of all players, coaches, executives, and other team staff.
At this point the league and the players’ association have not agreed on the number of preseason games, or whether there will be preseason games at all. (If you’re betting on the side of the NFLPA, bet on no preseason games). There is not an agreed-upon protocol regarding the frequency of testing. Nor is there an assurance that everyone involved will adhere to whatever guidelines the two parties must agree on before training camps can reasonably start, never mind the season itself. The NFL has been a “ready-fire-aim” organization through most of Roger Goodell’s tenure, but the danger in acting in this fashion now is unprecedented.
“So, about everyone doing the right thing, everybody in that community, everybody in that facility has to do the right thing: the coaches, the staff, the players,” Tretter said. “We all have a responsibility to keep each other safe knowing wrong decisions at the facility, wrong decisions in the community outside the facility have direct impacts on the players next to you, the staff member next to you, and what their family member might catch as well coming home from that facility. So, it’s not just about players’ decisions as well.
“We’ve had coaches come forward and talk about protocols being too much to ask, coaches come forward and saying they think everybody is going to get sick and we’ll just see how sick they get. Those attitudes can’t happen because this is all of us in this together. No one can just wish this away or just expect this to go away. There are consequences for getting sick. There are consequences players’ families have to face, and that’s my job as representative of the players is to try to provide as safe a workplace as possible and be able to tell my wife, talk to other players’ families, and let them know all we’ve done to try to make this as safe as possible for their husbands and their families when they have to come home from work. So, this is all about making the right decisions.”
Rams left tackle Andrew Whitworth, who was also on the call, doesn’t need to be told how contagious coronavirus can be, and how quickly things can spread.
“We had a family member that simply went to lunch with a friend and, innocent as it can be, and a couple days later we’re traveling all together and she started to not feel well and ended up deciding to go get a test. Next thing we know, she had it. A couple days later, my wife and I had it. A couple days after that, our kids had it. So, we were about seven for seven at that point. And unfortunately we had just visited my wife’s family and we were traveling with them as well and her mom and dad both got it. Obviously people of an older age it’s much — it seems to be much tougher, and it was on them. And unfortunately her dad got to a state where he had to be hospitalized.
“Luckily for us, such blessings we got him home about four or five days ago. He’s home with us now and we’re very blessed to have him and him be okay. But it was definitely a scary thing and realized how contagious this really is. It doesn’t make and it can spread like wildfire. For us, it’s affected us personally. It’s scary. But for our family and our kids, we ended up okay and everything seemed to go pretty normal, pretty mild case, but for her parents it wasn’t that way.”
Take that situation and add the complications inherent in a sport where players are in close contact and are running into other players in practices, and into opponents in games, and the absolute need for protocols becomes even more obvious.
“Obviously I’m a center,” Tretter said. “So, I’m living it, and we’ll start off this time more than any I have a dangerous job, not just what normal football is like, but what with what’s going on in the world, my job has gotten especially dangerous. This is going to be a battle of risk mitigation, finding guys opportunities to make safe decisions, and try to stay as safe as possible. But you can pull up almost any picture from a December winter game and can see how much breath is being blown back and forth a yard away from each other, and understanding how this virus is transmitted, what’s going to be going on with sick individuals with the offensive and defensive line or any play or any player.
“Those are the really tough decisions that we continue to ask on and try to get these protocols right and that’s why the health and safety aspect is so important in this. Because we all are at risk, our families are at risk, and different positions are maybe more so at risk, combining that with CDC guidelines with what underlying conditions make you more vulnerable, height and body mass index. Now, you’re looking at a player who is more exposed and has an underlying condition. Those are the questions guys have to understand.”
And if the NFL underestimates the odds of cloud contagion happening, the consequences could be graphic. This is where talk of shutting a season down before it even begins might come into play.
We’ve got some of the first calls on the testing protocols and how you get back from a positive tests from symptoms from being in close contact with someone with symptoms, being in close contact with someone who tested positive,” Tretter said. “And there is a quarantine period if you’re in close contact from someone who tested positive. The question that we asked is if someone — if the center tests positive on a Friday and there’s a quarantine period for all of his close contacts, well, if I just came from a practice where I’ve been in a huddle with all of my offensive teammates, been doing individual drills with all my linemen, been blocking the defensive linemen and linebackers all afternoon, well, aren’t we talking about 35 guys being in close contact with me? And if they’re all in quarantine for the next couple of days, what does Sunday’s game look like?
“Those are the questions that the league needs to offer their opinion on how this will move forward with. And then when you talk about what changes need to be made, maybe the schedule of how the week looks needs to be different to monitor what close contacts you have and avoiding those situations where one positive test on a wrong day late in the week derails an entire team because all the people that were close contacts now need to get through the protocols to make sure they’re not sick and transmitting this virus to everyone around them. You don’t have enough bodies to put on the field to play.”
Not that the NFL has ever cared proactively about player safety — the league has always been forced to give lip service to the idea, much less actual implementation of protocols in the best interests of its workforce. But in a time where there are serious hotspots in states where multiple NFL teams play (Florida and Texas being the most obvious examples), there is a legitimate question to be asked: How is any of this going to work on a practical, day-to-day basis?
“On the frequency of testing, we believe that daily testing is important, especially given some of these hot spots, and right now we don’t plan on changing that position,” Smith said. “It doesn’t mean that we won’t continue to talk about it, but we were clear about our belief that daily testing is going to be necessary and we’re always open to the plans to make our players as safe as possible. As far as daily testing, that’s where we are.
“The other sticking points about preseason… we have two concerns about the preseason. First, the joint task force agreed on an acclimation period for our guys to get them ready for football, and a lot of that frankly was influenced by what we learned coming back into camp after the 2011 season and the number of injuries, the spike in injuries because we didn’t feel there was the right acclimation. So, we’re going to insist and continue to fight for the right acclimation period. Preseason impacts that, but also the other issue about preseason is we believe that the right focus for our players and our business is not only coming up with a way to start the season, but to contemplate a way to finish it. And engaging in two games where players would be flying all over the country and then being together to engage in work, we feel that doing that prior to the season doesn’t properly influence or increase the likelihood of starting and finishing the season on time.”
Daily testing is important. Having everyone take the protocols seriously (once they’re agreed on and actually put in place) is crucial. Smith ended the conference call with the most important part of the equation for all involved.
“Going forward in this, we understand we’re trying to make a lot of decisions about what’s in the best health and safety for our players. But I’ll tell you right now, we’re in a place where very, very simply, what’s good for the country is good for sports. And something as simple as wearing a mask will have probably the most significant impact on that and whether sports return in this country. And that’s not a political statement. That’s a common sense and scientific statement. And, so, where I think our guys can probably be incredibly helpful and stepping out onto larger stage other than football is nothing will bring fans back to our stadiums than a simple decision across the country to wear a mask.”
That there are still so many important things up in the air with just a couple days before training camps begin should be of grave concern to all involved. The NFL is a ruthless for-profit enterprise and always has been, but neither the league nor the NFLPA can afford to treat COVID-19 as some sort of injury issue that happens over time. The consequences for going into any part of the 2020 season with half measures will be swift, severe, and long-lasting. Which is why everyone in charge of deciding these issues had better believe that it’s now about dotting all the I’s and crossing all the T’s, and not just about sending out a memo and hoping things work out because they always have.
We are all living in unprecedented times. We have seen exactly what horrible things can happen to America with an unprepared response. The NFL and NFLPA must learn from this example and do better, even with little time to spare.