So, I’m not sure if you’ve heard, but the 2020 NFL season is in dire jeopardy. With catastrophe looming on the horizon, I feel like the scientist at the beginning of every B-list disaster movie: I think I might know how to save the season that we all so desperately want to see, but it’s not going to be easy.
Never was that more apparent than this morning when news broke that MLB’s Miami Marlins had been stricken with a full-blown outbreak of COVID-19. The Marlins have recently contacted MLB teams in Philadelphia and Atlanta, who need to be isolated and re-tested. Mere days into the MLB’s grand reopening, games are being canceled, and the continuation of the season is already in doubt. Live sports have returned somewhat safely in Europe, but buoyed by staggering incompetence by our elected officials, COVID-19 has continued to throttle the United States utterly. One thing is clear: if the NFL insists on playing the season as is, they will experience similar outbreaks for the season in the current climate.
Making matters worse, an outbreak of this magnitude would be even more disastrous for the NFL. Unlike MLB, the NFL only has 16 games. Being forced to cancel games, even for two weeks, would completely wreck the NFL’s schedule. Just a few incidents such as this would make playoff seeding virtually impossible. The season would likely become a train wreck very quickly.
Suppose you’re looking for a ray of hope in all of this. In that case, there is a model of success that the NFL could potentially follow: it’s early, but the returns on the NBA and NHL’s COVID plans of using “bubble” or “hub” cities to isolate and protect the players have been extremely promising. Setting up a bubble seems like the best way to go if there is a path forward for playing sports during the apocalypse. There was plenty of time for the NFL to make such preparations; unlike other sports leagues, they had months to observe and plan before the season was set to start officially. Instead, the NFL blundered its way through the offseason with seemingly no plans or precautions, apparently deluding themselves that COVID would be under control by August and September. Instead, things have gotten worse, and setting up a bubble or other safety measures will require time that the NFL no longer has. They’ve wholly squandered their advantage.
To put it mildly, the NFL’s lack of foresight has put them way behind the sticks on third down. If there is going to be a football season, the only hope they have is to punt and delay the season to save it.
While COVID is currently peaking in many states, things might look far more promising come winter. And even if it doesn’t, by pushing the season to December, the NFL would give itself plenty of time to potentially set up, organize, and negotiate a bubble or hub city approach with the NFLPA. Delaying the season would also allow teams to have a slower, more controlled ramp-up period with more practice time, which would mean a higher quality of football with fewer serious injuries. In short, it can do nothing but improve the NFL’s chances. The worst-case scenario is that we get to December, and COVID has remained equally or even more widespread, but if that’s going to happen, then starting the season in September is doomed to fail anyway! So, let’s give ourselves a fighting chance.
I’ll conclude with this: lately, there’s been an extremely misguided narrative that those of us in the media who are realistic about COVID’s challenges to organized sports are somehow “rooting” for the season to be canceled. That couldn’t be further from the truth. I’m a recent college graduate, and this is my first ever job covering professional sports. I have student loans and health insurance to worry about. It isn’t an exaggeration to say that no one wants football to happen this year more than me. This is precisely why I need to be realistic about what’s happening in our country. COVID-19 cannot simply be wished away with “positivity” or “good vibes” or whatever. Having football this year is going to require pragmatism and honesty. Going in half-cocked like the NFL is currently planning on doing could have disastrous consequences…and the potential cancellation of the season isn’t the only thing at stake. The NFL could be jeopardizing the long-term health and lives of many people. Instead of charging into the season with a suicide mission, the NFL is responsible to their fans, media members, players, and the world to step back and figure out how to play their season correctly.