Likelihood of an NFL 2020 Season

InstaFace

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Moving this over from the Youth / Coaches board:

[Sports] Just ain't gonna happen till there's a vaccine. <...> Maybe pro sports find a path to come back sooner but not any time before what... Jan 2021? The NFL sure as hell ain't kicking off in Sept. without a vaccine.
I wish I could bet substantial amounts of money towards charity against this, because if need be (and need won't be), President Trump himself will intervene to make sure that FOOTBAW! continues, even if only on TV. They would sooner have all the players' families go on total isolation quarantine along with those of every coach and support personnel in each team, for a month prior to the opening of training camp and then through the entire season, than they would delay the season by even a week. I mean, shit, the teams already travel to away games via private charter flight as it is.
I think this approach to football, even at the NFL level, doesn’t take into consideration the huge number of people in ancillary roles that would be required to have a game, even if there was zero paid attendance. And most of those people don’t get paid enough for their game day roles to be quarantined from everyone else the rest of their week. So it would be impossible to have this be anything other than a huge potential for viral transference, not only among those at the stadium, but then to their non-football networks.
So either the country is back to “normal” or there is no NFL season this fall.
I take your point that it's an impracticality for them to get risk down to zero. However, there's some combination of quarantining the athletes, coaches and decent amount of sideline staff, and letting go (or having them not attend / do something different) of a number of non-essential game day staff. The "huge number of people in ancillary roles" is not some ironclad requirement to hold a football game. High schools do it all over the country without much fanfare. The NFL did it for decades before their budgets got huge. That staff bloat is a convenience to them, not a requirement. If athletes have to carry their own bags and maybe coaches have to carry their own clipboards a bit, nobody is going to die, which is kind of the actual question.

I stand by my assertion that, even if the outbreak is extant come August, the NFL season will proceed in some fashion or another, due to its political value, connections, the political demographics of who NFL fans are (you think Trump wouldn't like to be perceived as the guy who saved the NFL's season?), and the fact that they only derive 14% of revenue from live attendance. You might argue that it would be ill-advised to do so, and you might even be right, but I think it'll happen regardless for the sake of the national psyche. Barring a player strike, I guess I shouldn't discount that possibility.
 

Saints Rest

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Moving this over from the Youth / Coaches board:




I take your point that it's an impracticality for them to get risk down to zero. However, there's some combination of quarantining the athletes, coaches and decent amount of sideline staff, and letting go (or having them not attend / do something different) of a number of non-essential game day staff. The "huge number of people in ancillary roles" is not some ironclad requirement to hold a football game. High schools do it all over the country without much fanfare. The NFL did it for decades before their budgets got huge. That staff bloat is a convenience to them, not a requirement. If athletes have to carry their own bags and maybe coaches have to carry their own clipboards a bit, nobody is going to die, which is kind of the actual question.

I stand by my assertion that, even if the outbreak is extant come August, the NFL season will proceed in some fashion or another, due to its political value, connections, the political demographics of who NFL fans are (you think Trump wouldn't like to be perceived as the guy who saved the NFL's season?), and the fact that they only derive 14% of revenue from live attendance. You might argue that it would be ill-advised to do so, and you might even be right, but I think it'll happen regardless for the sake of the national psyche. Barring a player strike, I guess I shouldn't discount that possibility.
But I assume you imagine that all these games would be televised, right? So now you are adding all those camera ops, sound guys, booth crews, engineers, A2s, video techs, etc. I don’t have a number but if there are 90 players dressed, I bet there would easily be 10x that number to make the game happen.
 

djbayko

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Ever since this outbreak began, I figured the NFL season would serve as a psychological turning point for our country. The ultimate sign that everyone is finally getting on with our lives. A much needed form of entertainment for a nation who has gone through 6 months of shit. You can't take football away from Americans.

It's far enough out that they'll have plenty of time to figure out a multi-layered mitigation strategy, unlike baseball, basketball, and hockey, which were caught by surprise. Players are going to want to play...for themselves and for their country. We know the owners will want it.
 

Marciano490

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The sport basically kills its players anyway, so why not?

I assume we’ll have a way to test who’s had the virus in a few months. Enough time to get groundscrews and camera people staffed up. The players - well, corona is probably the 4th or 5th most dangerous thing they deal with and they have the means to more or less quarantine around games and practices.

And, if any player dies because they went on with the season, I’m sure they’ll find an appropriate way to show respect - like taking a knee before the game or something.
 

riboflav

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FTR, my main points in that coach's thread dealt more with high school sports starting back up in August and going forward in the mid-Atlantic region which is my area of expertise. Please read my points in that thread if you're interested in this.

As for the NFL, I wouldn't be shocked if it started back at some point in 2020, but I'd be surprised at least if there were training camps opening in July around the time the Olympics were scheduled to go off in Japan unless the summer heat provides a slow down of the spread. And then the season kicking off on Sept. 13 would naturally be pushed back as Red October alluded to. I'd be even more surprised if there were fans in the stands at any point during the season absent a vaccine or really effective antiviral. I guess that tightly government-controlled tracing could be in place by fall but then that raises a whole bunch of ethical and legal issues that would have to be worked out.

Based on my non-expert reading of the disease experts is that business or certain types of businesses start to come back gradually with tight restrictions after the peak takes time to decline (can take weeks). This will also vary by region. NY may hit peak in two weeks and be in its peak for an additional two-three weeks but here in VA we won't hit peak probably until late April or early May and so on across the country where other regions may not reach the peak until late May or June.

All that said, I still have a hard time seeing the following non-essential businesses coming back until there is a vaccine or effective antiviral:

concerts
sports
theme parks
casinos
cruises
*crowded* theaters, restaurants, hotels, conferences, etc.

Hope I'm wrong.
 

cornwalls@6

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Saw this over the weekend. He’s never struck me as a hot take/ attention grabber. The article really seems like he’s just giving his armchair opinion, though I suppose it’s possible that in his position, he’s hearing more specific rumblings from the powers that be, and maybe didn’t feel at liberty to share them at this time. At any rate, gave me a little bit of pause. I increasingly think baseball, hockey, and the NBA are finished for this year. And starting to inch that way regarding football, although some of you certainly gave very valid reasons for why you think they will play. It just seems like many of our major cities are several months from being able to have large crowd events.

https://www.masslive.com/sports/2020/03/coronavirus-kirk-herbstreit-would-be-shocked-if-there-is-any-nfl-college-football-next-fall.html
 

Lose Remerswaal

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But I assume you imagine that all these games would be televised, right? So now you are adding all those camera ops, sound guys, booth crews, engineers, A2s, video techs, etc. I don’t have a number but if there are 90 players dressed, I bet there would easily be 10x that number to make the game happen.
Fallon can go on the air with one camera, NFL can go on air with six, instead of eighteen.
 
I wonder how well-equipped referees would be to cope with the travel required in a pandemic situation. I reckon the league would have to make special travel and lodging arrangements for them; same for the TV personnel required to make national broadcasts happen. And actually, where are the players going to stay and eat on the road in this sort of scenario? I know they can charter flights, but are suitable hotels and restaurants going to be open and staffed and functioning well enough to room and feed the players, coaches and staff of an NFL team, as well as referees and TV personnel? Also, how do you stop idiots from congregating and indeed tailgating outside an empty stadium before/during/after a game? I'm sure everyone saw pictures of the Paris Saint-Germain fans outside of their stadium during their Champions League match against Borussia Dortmund. (Or are we just assuming that enough of life would have to be back to normal - e.g., hotels and restaurants reopened, some flights running around the country - for this to even be a remote possibility?)

A few other random thoughts:
  • Re: refereeing, would the instant replay review system would change or have to be scrapped in a league going ahead with fewer cameras and fewer in-stadium personnel present. Maybe everything just gets sent to New York - or another league location - when appropriate, instead of handling everything in a stadium?
  • Is it possible to run an NFL broadcast from the usual production truck and also keep one's social distancing intact? (I'm guessing no, or at least not without significant modifications...although I'm not sure how normal news broadcasts are being run around the world right now in this regard.)
  • I have to assume the International Series can't possibly go ahead this year. It'll be tough enough getting games played in the USA; traveling to the UK and Mexico can't possibly happen, and would be totally pointless anyway if fans can't be directly involved.
  • Is it possible that for the first time, we might see live commentary on NFL games off-tube from a studio instead of automatically sending commentators to the stadiums in question? (Keeping the play-by-play and color commentators - not to mention spotters and other in-booth or in-studio personnel - six feet apart at all times would also be pretty tricky.)
The more I think about this, the more I realize there are many, many more moving parts to factor into any scenario in which sports - football or otherwise - are allowed to restart than you'd probably think of at first. And football is surely one of the tougher sports to get going, because it has more moving parts than most: the only things the NFL has going for it, really, are a) its popularity, and the national desire to make sure televised football happens in 2020, and b) time, not needing to restart until August-September - or possibly even after that, because in theory there's no reason you couldn't wait until October or November to start the season and let it run through to March or even April. (Right?)
 

j44thor

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I think the season will be delayed. No one is able to seriously workout anywhere. New coaches can't get their system in. How can you go from doing little to training camp in July if it's allowed?
New systems/coaches will be a tough luck/ too bad situation, but players not being in top shape can be somewhat mitigated by expanded rosters. I think we should/will see vastly expanded game day rosters across the board.
 

BaseballJones

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Fallon can go on the air with one camera, NFL can go on air with six, instead of eighteen.
Yep. They can pare things down considerably and still put a good product on television. You only really need three sideline cameras, a couple of roving cameras, and that overhead automatic camera and that's enough to do the job. You'll need a crew in the production truck, the announce crew - that honestly doesn't even actually *need* to be there, and you can do an NFL production with way fewer guys than one might think.

As for preparation....if they want to start the season on time (assuming it's even allowed by the government), and ONLY have the late-July through first week of September time frame to prepare, then so be it. They're all on a level playing field and these guys are pros. Maybe they allow more hours of actual practice - currently the CBA restricts that but in this crazy circumstance maybe they get NFLPA buy-in to have more practice in the shorter amount of time.

The product we would see on the field wouldn't be much different than what we normally see, I don't think. I suspect that the starters might get more time in the preseason games than usual, which would come with a few more injuries to starters, so that would suck. But on the whole, when the season started, the product would look similar and we'd all be so frigging thirsty for live sports that I don't think we'd care at ALL if it wasn't QUITE the same.
 

Lose Remerswaal

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  • Is it possible that for the first time, we might see live commentary on NFL games off-tube from a studio instead of automatically sending commentators to the stadiums in question? (Keeping the play-by-play and color commentators - not to mention spotters and other in-booth or in-studio personnel - six feet apart at all times would also be pretty tricky.)
But really, how many folks are there out there with the skills and knowledge to pull this off?
 

BaseballJones

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But really, how many folks are there out there with the skills and knowledge to pull this off?
It wouldn't be difficult at all, to be honest. You can call a game just as easily from your own television set as you can from in the booth. Often times announcers will make the call from watching the monitor rather than the actual game being played on the field.

See: http://www.sportsbroadcastjournal.com/play-by-play-from-the-studio-embrace-it/

This could easily be done with the equipment and technology that exists now, and be done virtually seamlessly. And every single pro announcer could do it without difficulty. The viewer wouldn't know the difference.
 

kelpapa

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The testing that gives immediate results will be the game changer for this. They will be able to test all the players before the game starts. We will be looking at a delay, but they will be playing games. Probably without a crowd to start.
 
It wouldn't be difficult at all, to be honest. You can call a game just as easily from your own television set as you can from in the booth. Often times announcers will make the call from watching the monitor rather than the actual game being played on the field.

See: http://www.sportsbroadcastjournal.com/play-by-play-from-the-studio-embrace-it/

This could easily be done with the equipment and technology that exists now, and be done virtually seamlessly. And every single pro announcer could do it without difficulty. The viewer wouldn't know the difference.
FYI, I think Lose was just throwing me a bone, as SoSH's resident (mostly) off-tube sports commentator.
 

lexrageorge

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I'm going to start with this headline:

https://time.com/5809848/game-zero-soccer-game-italy/
Now, I'm not saying there absolutely has to be a vaccine before we can have public large-scale sporting events; there's a lot of different outcomes still at play here. We're still learning a lot about the virus every day, and improvements in testing and treatment protocols could be game changing events if the chips fall our way.

However, as much as the NFL may desire otherwise, large scale sporting events with fans will be one of the lower priority items to restart (cruise ships will be far lower). States and cities do not have to open the stadiums to crowds, or at all, and are unlikely to do so if there are still outbreaks looming in September. If anything, I'm taking the over on that.

The league could look into playing in front of empty stadiums. But there are still a lot of people involved: players, coaches, staff, production people, media, security, support staff, etc. And when the game is done, those people will go home back to their families. So there will need to be some real innovations in testing and containment strategy for the season to start in September. I think those innovations are likely, but it's hard to predict right now where things are going to be.
 

BaseballJones

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FYI, I think Lose was just throwing me a bone, as SoSH's resident (mostly) off-tube sports commentator.
Heh. Well that may be so, but it's also the case that they could pull it off without too much difficulty. And we wouldn't even notice as fans.

EDIT: And that's pretty cool. I was in the radio sports broadcast world for a while. Loved it. Actually called a D1 college football game two years ago (that was the last time I did it). Are you still doing it?
 

Mooch

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Hearing Fauci say yesterday that COVID will almost certainly come back around in the fall, I can't imagine football being played anywhere for the 2020 season.
 

BaseballJones

ivanvamp
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Hearing Fauci say yesterday that COVID will almost certainly come back around in the fall, I can't imagine football being played anywhere for the 2020 season.
If there's not a vaccine for it by then....I just don't know if society can survive doing this all over again.
 

EL Jeffe

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Hearing Fauci say yesterday that COVID will almost certainly come back around in the fall, I can't imagine football being played anywhere for the 2020 season.
I can't really see any more sports being played in 2020. Spring or summer of 2021? It's conceivable something like pro golf (without fans) could work, I guess.
 

Mooch

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Oh well, I guess if if it's "long odds" then Brady will probably just quit.
Snark aside, a 44 year old body sitting around for a year and then trying to ramp it up at NFL speed? I could easily see a scenario where he gives it a go in training camp and decides that he's too diminished as an athlete to play anymore.
 

tims4wins

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Forget whether or not he is diminished. If he sits around for a year with his family and gets a glimpse at what retirement looks like I could see him saying this is great, I have no need to play any more. Of course the opposite could happen too - “retirement is boring I need to play”
 

CoffeeNerdness

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If the NFL is a go are there any athletes that could cross over leagues and make the switch since the other leagues are toast? Billy Hamilton running fly routes or Zdeno Chara fixing the Tight End problem in New England?

(I know this is highly unlikely given that most will still be under contract, this is more of a 'who are the best NFL prospects playing other pro sports?' question.)
 

lexrageorge

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If there's not a vaccine for it by then....I just don't know if society can survive doing this all over again.
It is unlikely that a vaccine will be generally available in 2020. The best we can hope for is for clinical trials of vaccines to progress and show positive results by the end of this year. Virologists seem to believe that is possible if not likely.

A vaccine is not absolutely needed for shelter-in-place restrictions to be eased. There are other ways, discussed in the V&N thread, involving aggressive test, trace, and contain strategies.

However, it's unclear if those containment methods will allow for sporting events to take place, never mind allowing the venues to open to the public. The country will have other priorities; getting supply chains moving smoothly, getting schools and universities to reopen, ensuring businesses can relaunch, etc. If schools cannot reopen in the fall (a disastrous scenario, IMO), there is zero chance of there being public support for football games.

If I'm an NFL owner, I'm certainly making contingency plans for a shortened season, as well as possibly no season at all.
 

luckiestman

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Let’s say they do a short preseason in September and play for real in October

that’s 5 months from now until September.

If we don’t have mass testing with quick results we are going to have major problems besides football.

I’m optimistic about the NFL playing games. Fans in the stadium is a different issue.
 

luckiestman

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It is unlikely that a vaccine will be generally available in 2020. The best we can hope for is for clinical trials of vaccines to progress and show positive results by the end of this year. Virologists seem to believe that is possible if not likely.

A vaccine is not absolutely needed for shelter-in-place restrictions to be eased. There are other ways, discussed in the V&N thread, involving aggressive test, trace, and contain strategies.

However, it's unclear if those containment methods will allow for sporting events to take place, never mind allowing the venues to open to the public. The country will have other priorities; getting supply chains moving smoothly, getting schools and universities to reopen, ensuring businesses can relaunch, etc. If schools cannot reopen in the fall (a disastrous scenario, IMO), there is zero chance of there being public support for football games.

If I'm an NFL owner, I'm certainly making contingency plans for a shortened season, as well as possibly no season at all.
I agree with a lot here but don’t see how it follows that if schools are not open there will not be support for the NFL.
 

lexrageorge

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I agree with a lot here but don’t see how it follows that if schools are not open there will not be support for the NFL.
I feel that schools and universities being closed in the fall means:

a.) We are having great difficulty keeping the virus spread contained despite our best efforts. One of the priorities in Gottlieb's plan is to get the schools to open, and so if we are unable to get there, it means that we are not having much success.

b.) People will be frustrated. Not everyone is mentally prepared for that possibility; closing schools is a major inconvenience for a lot of people.

c.) There will likely be other closings that have extended far longer than people would have hoped, causing major and significant economic pain.

I don't see support for the league holding games in front of crowded stadiums if that happens. I'm not even sure people would be that open to support games being held in empty stadiums. There may be a lot of people saying "Why do they get to play and make money while I still cannot work and my kids are still home?". Finally, there are still a lot of people that need to get together to put on a football game. If things are serious enough that schools are still closed, will cash-strapped, debt-ridden states (as in all 50 of them) want even that level of social interaction happening in their back yards while they are struggling to keep the virus contained?
 

Saints Rest

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I'm going to start with this headline:

https://time.com/5809848/game-zero-soccer-game-italy/
Now, I'm not saying there absolutely has to be a vaccine before we can have public large-scale sporting events; there's a lot of different outcomes still at play here. We're still learning a lot about the virus every day, and improvements in testing and treatment protocols could be game changing events if the chips fall our way.

However, as much as the NFL may desire otherwise, large scale sporting events with fans will be one of the lower priority items to restart (cruise ships will be far lower). States and cities do not have to open the stadiums to crowds, or at all, and are unlikely to do so if there are still outbreaks looming in September. If anything, I'm taking the over on that.

The league could look into playing in front of empty stadiums. But there are still a lot of people involved: players, coaches, staff, production people, media, security, support staff, etc. And when the game is done, those people will go home back to their families. So there will need to be some real innovations in testing and containment strategy for the season to start in September. I think those innovations are likely, but it's hard to predict right now where things are going to be.
This last paragraph is the key for the NFL or almost any televised sport. And that's just game-day. Let's not forget about how many people are needed in support during the practice week: equipment guys, training staff, janitors, field crew, etc.

Someone upthread mentioned reducing the number of people in the truck. I don't know how many of you have been inside a TV production truck, but I have. First, it's a very small space with a lot of people in it. And although you might be able to get rid of a couple of PA's or interns, you still have a large number that puts the density much closer than 6' spacing.

And one thing that hasn't been discussed here, but I heard some Bruins talking about it when the idea of playing before empty stadiums was briefly brought up, but how well will sports, such as football, that require a certain level of giving up one's body, and likely rely on the adrenaline fueled by a crowd, suffer in the absence thereof?
 

Salem's Lot

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I don’t see a way that the owners would open themselves up to lawsuits from players who’s family members get sick or die from this after the leagues open back up. Unfortunately just because of the nature of the disease, I think sports are over in this country until there’s a vaccine, and some teams or even leagues won’t survive it.
 
Here in the UK we've already seen one sport (F1) replaced on TV by its esport equivalent...at least as a one off. It was...strange.

I actually think F1 or any kind of motorsport is probably the easiest to replace with a computerised version - the simulations there are closer to reality than in any other sport (F1 drivers sometimes do some part of their training on publicly available consoles & games) and the cost and safety savings are bigger than in most sports.

Having said that, and having watched (some of) a virtual race...they're not there yet. Glitches, disconnections, lack of production professionalism etc made it not-very-compelling watching. But it's probably a lot closer than a lot of people realise.
 

djbayko

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I don't see support for the league holding games in front of crowded stadiums if that happens. I'm not even sure people would be that open to support games being held in empty stadiums. There may be a lot of people saying "Why do they get to play and make money while I still cannot work and my kids are still home?". Finally, there are still a lot of people that need to get together to put on a football game. If things are serious enough that schools are still closed, will cash-strapped, debt-ridden states (as in all 50 of them) want even that level of social interaction happening in their back yards while they are struggling to keep the virus contained?
The bolded is a non-starter absent some unexpected scientific breakthrough. That doesn’t mean there won’t be football. I don’t think we should even be wasting time in here discussing whether there will be crowds.

Edit: Typo
 
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RedOctober3829

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Why are people optimistic about playing but not with fans? Why would the league allow the players to be together in meeting rooms, training room, locker room, etc. if there is a risk still playing with fans? It's fantasyland to quarantine all the players and staff from their families.
 

djbayko

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Why are people optimistic about playing but not with fans? Why would the league allow the players to be together in meeting rooms, training room, locker room, etc. if there is a risk still playing with fans? It's fantasyland to quarantine all the players and staff from their families.
Because the fewer people there are, the more realistic it is to implement strict mitigation strategies such as isolation, constant testing, etc. Fans are a whole different ball game. Uncontrollable.

Also, if the standard is that no one can ever get sick, then we’re essentially admitting defeat and all this talk about anyone going back to work before our population is vaccinated in a couple years is nonsense. I don’t think that’s true.
 

lexrageorge

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The bolded is a non-starter absent some unexpected scientific breakthrough. That doesn’t mean there won’t be football. I don’t think we should even be wasting time in here discussing whether there will be crowds.

Edit: Typo
The thread premise did not exclude playing in front of fans. Second, I think people here may be understating the safety concerns inherent in playing even without fans. But I'm also not ruling out our ability to bend the rules in our favor by September. But there will be other milestones that are higher up people's priorities. I mentioned schools reopening, but there are many other things that have to reopen before people want NFL games, no matter how much Trump screams from the pulpit.
 

djbayko

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The thread premise did not exclude playing in front of fans. Second, I think people here may be understating the safety concerns inherent in playing even without fans. But I'm also not ruling out our ability to bend the rules in our favor by September. But there will be other milestones that are higher up people's priorities. I mentioned schools reopening, but there are many other things that have to reopen before people want NFL games, no matter how much Trump screams from the pulpit.
I realize the thread did not exclude fans. I made my comment because a few recent posts seemed to be very close to linking the feasibility of football’s return with large crowds. If that’s a pre-requisite then this can be a very short discussion. You might be right that it’s difficult/impossible to safely play football, period. But I think it’s at least something that can be brainstormed and possibly implemented depending on our appetite for risk.

I don’t think it makes much sense to think of things having to happen in some sort of prioritized sequence. The forces that are trying to make sports happen are different from the forces that decide when kids return to school. The risks are somewhat different as well.
 

mauf

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Whether the NFL plays in 2020 or not depends on whether it’s socially acceptable by then to accept that all the players will get COVID-19.

I don’t think it’s crazy to think we’d accept that. All these players have been subject to extensive medical screening; undiagnosed issues are presumably very rare, and veterans who do have underlying conditions could be paid not to play. The players who were cleared to play would be at less risk than your typical grocery store cashier. Players would have their temperatures checked when arriving for work (practices or games), and sick players would be required to self-isolate, but the assumption would be that everyone is going to get it, and everyone is going to be fine. Whether that’s tenable will, of course, depend on whether the more robust data we will have by September show that the risk of serious illness is extremely low for men under 40 without underlying health issues.

Assuming that frivolous stuff like sideline and locker room interviews were eliminated, I think broadcasting can be done consistent with social distancing with only minor modifications.

Ensuring the safety of coaches, officials, and other necessary staff — and also the families of players — will be the hardest part. I don’t pretend to know how that will be done — but I think we’re going to get some learnings between now and September on how to do that.

This all assumes that non-essential businesses won’t be subject to across-the-board closures by September. If we’ve made no progress, we won’t have sports. And even in a best-case scenario, I don’t foresee fans at NFL games in 2020.
 

CoffeeNerdness

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I'm sure there are at least a couple of Photoshop windows open right now with team branded face masks being mocked-up. Phil Knight will do a big reveal at a Rose Garden press conference in late June.
 

InstaFace

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Sep 27, 2016
21,754
Pittsburgh, PA
FTR, my main points in that coach's thread dealt more with high school sports starting back up in August and going forward in the mid-Atlantic region which is my area of expertise. Please read my points in that thread if you're interested in this.
Yes, I kept the youth side of the reply, uh, quarantined there. It's a very different conversation, the NFL bit was something of a throwaway line in your post.

All that said, I still have a hard time seeing the following non-essential businesses coming back until there is a vaccine or effective antiviral:

concerts
sports
theme parks
casinos
cruises
*crowded* theaters, restaurants, hotels, conferences, etc.

Hope I'm wrong.
I think you're probably right on at least a few of these categories. I just think that the NFL is likely to be an exception, and perhaps casinos too since they can control density somewhat and they have tons of political capital (both in NV and nationally - see Sheldon Adelson, Steve Wynn etc).
 

Ale Xander

Hamilton
SoSH Member
Oct 31, 2013
72,430
Yes, I kept the youth side of the reply, uh, quarantined there. It's a very different conversation, the NFL bit was something of a throwaway line in your post.


I think you're probably right on at least a few of these categories. I just think that the NFL is likely to be an exception, and perhaps casinos too since they can control density somewhat and they have tons of political capital (both in NV and nationally - see Sheldon Adelson, Steve Wynn etc).
Don't people hate Adelson and Wynn? Seems to be this is negative political capital.
 

lexrageorge

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 31, 2007
18,096
I realize the thread did not exclude fans. I made my comment because a few recent posts seemed to be very close to linking the feasibility of football’s return with large crowds. If that’s a pre-requisite then this can be a very short discussion. You might be right that it’s difficult/impossible to safely play football, period. But I think it’s at least something that can be brainstormed and possibly implemented depending on our appetite for risk.

I don’t think it makes much sense to think of things having to happen in some sort of prioritized sequence. The forces that are trying to make sports happen are different from the forces that decide when kids return to school. The risks are somewhat different as well.
I don't want to go down a rathole of whether kids need to be back in school specifically (we'll agree to disagree on that). But as I mentioned before, there has to be some level of success with a test, track and contain strategy.

If shelter-in-place has to be reimposed again across much of the country, there is not going to be appetite for enriching the pockets of NFL owners and FoxSports while people aren't able to work. States will be severely cash strapped, and will not want to take any risks they deem unnecessary if we are struggling with containment. And states do not have to allow stadiums to open.

OTOH, if we are successful with some level of test-and-contain, or some other breakthrough, then the appetite for risk probably will change, and there are some potentially innovative approaches that could be explored when it comes to playing without fans.
 

PseuFighter

Silent scenester
SoSH Member
Dec 22, 2003
14,408
I've been curious how they or any other league will handle the nightmare, yet seemingly inevitable scenario of starting to play, and then one player tests positive.