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“NFL-vs-Pandemic”

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Walk down the hallway, in your office building, in a store, in an elevator.  You will see the sign.

“In case of emergency-break the glass”

The NFL may be about to reach that point this week, amid fears it is about to lose the fight with Covid-pandemic virus.

It’s not just the NFL, it’s America.

7.7M cases of positive tests in the US since March.  The death count is now heading to 215,000.  The latest outbreak is leading to 57,000 per day nationwide…new outbreaks a day.

The President says the country is ’rounding the corner’ in controlling things, as if you can believe anything he has said since March about this virus-crisis.

The NFL is just like everyone else.  They are now in the process of being impacted to the point, they have cancelled some games, but the number count is growing.

There have been positive tests in Tennessee, 23-including players, coaches and staff members.  New England had had 4-tests in a week.  Kansas City now has three in a week.  Chicago, the New York Jets , the Raiders among others.  Team facilities closed.  Practices banned.  Teams unable to prepare for games.

The NFL, like the NBA-NHL-MLB, have been exceptional in putting together testing protocols, implementing them, and dealing quickly with positive tests, outbreaks and violations.

Baseball has gone 40-days without a positive test.  The NBA concluded 8-straight weeks in the bubble without a crisis.  The NHL went 90-days, nearly 12-weeks in the hub cities with no positive tests.

But the NFL is a different set of circumstances.  It’s 69-players.  It’s 30-football related staff members.  It’s huge coaching staffs.  It’s upwards of 200-employees inside the building. on the business side.

The Union is concerned what is next, based on what happened in Tennessee.  The owners are terrified this could grow.  Their TV contracts are at risk if games are cancelled, if the season is paused, if the playoffs cannot take place.

They test daily.  They do contact testing at the first signs of a positive test.

Next up could be a costly decision to go team quarantines.  ordering all teams into hotels for the next 13-weeks of the regular season..  It might be a similar design to how hockey and basketball got thru this crisis.  But the players are upset at the prospect of being away from their families for the next 13-weeks.

There is no vaccine.  Testing is constant.  Masks are everywhere.  You cannot have social distancing on the field.

This might be last option available to prevent outbreaks.

Wake up in a hotel…go to meetings…go to workouts…go to film sessions…go to team meals….go back to the hotel and go to sleep.  Interacting with the family, via Zoom, Skype, phone calls.

Nothing is ideal in society right now

The NFL knows this is not going away despite what the White House says.

The biggest fear, this gets worse on teams and impacts more and more games.

IT may be time for the NFL to walk down the hallway and look for the sign
‘In case of emergency-break the glass’.

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