Likelihood of an NFL 2020 Season

luckiestman · Mar 31, 2020

I don’t get the vaccine talk. There might never be a vaccine. I hope there is one but I don’t think you can bank on it.

I think what is more likely is quick testing, way more ventilators, better treatments, and masks.

If we can deal with it the way we can deal with the flu the world is going to have to go on.

luckiestman · Mar 31, 2020

PseuFighter said:
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.

Isolate him and test the other players. Asymptomatic carriers test positive, right?

h8mfy · Mar 31, 2020

Just to give a little context on crew sizes - at NextVR, for our live NBA games, we would have had 16 people on-site for our (cancelled) last game at Utah, 8 of which were local contractors, meaning 8 colleagues were getting on planes. This includes 3 cameramen, but our cameras are "set and forget" so they are not really "operated" during the games (we set up 6-8 depending on the venue). We take advantage of the local broadcast's audio which reduces the number of staff.

As a small start-up, we worked hard to implement REMI (remote) production capability to reduce travel, meaning there were another 9 staffers in the control room (including the announcer in his own booth), some of whom would have originally been onsite in the very crowded truck.

lexrageorge · Mar 31, 2020

luckiestman said:
I don’t get the vaccine talk. There might never be a vaccine. I hope there is one but I don’t think you can bank on it.

I think what is more likely is quick testing, way more ventilators, better treatments, and masks.

If we can deal with it the way we can deal with the flu the world is going to have to go on.

Most virologists that I've seen on Youtube and Twitter seem fairly convinced that a vaccine is likely in 2021; it's not the super virus that it gets made out to be sometimes. But I agree it's not the only way forward.

luckiestman · Mar 31, 2020

lexrageorge said:
Most virologists that I've seen on Youtube and Twitter seem fairly convinced that a vaccine is likely in 2021; it's not the super virus that it gets made out to be sometimes. But I agree it's not the only way forward.

I hope you’re right but if that’s the case maybe when they finish this one they can get me a common cold vaccine

lexrageorge · Mar 31, 2020

luckiestman said:
I hope you’re right but if that’s the case maybe when they finish this one they can get me a common cold vaccine

They’re not analogous. At all.

Was (Not Wasdin) · Mar 31, 2020

With the facts as we have them now, I don't think there will be NFL football in 2020. I think if there is, at best it will start late and will be a shortened season, played without fans. I'd expect that they might allow tailgating, on a limited basis, and you stay outside and watch the games on tv. Stay spread out, don't share your beers, wear a mask, use Purell on your hands every five minutes and maybe you'll be ok.

One thing to consider is where we are with medical procedures at that point. I don't think players are going to be too keen to play if they know that any sort of surgical procedure may be delayed weeks, or months, to deal with another outbreak.

Lawyer-boy question, because I'm sitting on yet another interminable conference call on a deal that isnt going to happen (because of Covid-19)-once sports of any kind start up again, are they going to rewrite the language on the back of the ticket (which is actually a revocable license* to include a specific waiver of any claims from contracting Covid 19 at a game?

*in the legal sense, not the PSL concept

Fake edit-because of the risk of EEE, many Mass HS football teams were barred from playing on Friday nights last fall (2019), and had to play on Saturday mornings or afternoons. Many of the kids that I knew from my son's HS team played a second sport, often lacrosse, which they would be playing now. For the current juniors, they are almost certainly not going to have football in the fall, realistically their only shot at a "normal" season is lacrosse in spring 2021.

djbayko · Mar 31, 2020

PseuFighter said:
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.

If that is going to be considered a “nightmare” then they shouldn’t start playing games until that attitude has changed.

It makes sense that the NBA and other leagues shut down because hey had no plan, plus they needed to be responsible corporate citizens and contribute to the “flatten the curve” movement.

At some point, we have to start gradually taking more risks as a society. Professional sports are full of some of the healthiest people on the planet.

djbayko · Mar 31, 2020

luckiestman said:
I hope you’re right but if that’s the case maybe when they finish this one they can get me a common cold vaccine

In sure you know the common cold is several different pathogens which happen to invoke a similar immune response. So that makes this a little more complicated.

But let’s assume it’s a single Coronavirus for minute. If the common cold were killing this many people and shutting down the global economy, we’d probably have the collective will to create and distribute a vaccine.

riboflav · Mar 31, 2020

I'll add too that there still seems so much we don't know about the virus. There are articles popping up suggesting that there's still a risk that this may be more airborne than we've imagined. They're not saying it is like the measles. They're saying we still can't rule it out. So much is still unknown including how crappy much of the data has been (which seems to be getting better but we're not to the point where we have a good grasp of it).

luckiestman said:
Isolate him and test the other players. Asymptomatic carriers test positive, right?

How many others has he infected by the time he is tested? Will those other players he's already infected show up as positive right away? IDK the answers to these FTR.

riboflav · Mar 31, 2020

djbayko said:
If that is going to be considered a “nightmare” then they shouldn’t start playing games until that attitude has changed.

It makes sense that the NBA and other leagues shut down because hey had no plan, plus they needed to be responsible corporate citizens and contribute to the “flatten the curve” movement.

At some point, we have to start gradually taking more risks as a society. Professional sports are full of some of the healthiest people on the planet.

They are but are the officials and the coaches?

The Gray Eagle · Mar 31, 2020

The answer: Football Island.

Find a military base on an island. Start now on constructing a couple of football fields/TV studios there. These would be basically practice fields, only with TV gear. No bleachers or audience seats needed, just a field and broadcast setup. Build another really basic 32 football fields for practices.

Build living quarters to house a few thousand people for 6 or 8 months.

In August, move the whole league to the base. Anyone-- player, coach, broadcast personnel, media member-- who doesn't want to spend months and months on a remote military base can opt out and be replaced by someone who does. There will be enough people who want to play "NFL" football or work on covering the games to do this.

All players, coaches, broadcast crew, refs, etc. must test negative for the virus before being allowed on the plane. Anyone on base testing positive is either quarantined in separate facilities or sent back home and replaced by someone who tests negative.

Reassign any military personnel elsewhere who won't be needed for the production of the games and for maintaining the people there.

The league personnel stay on Football Island through December, playing a season. Play 2 games on Thursdays, 2 on Fridays, 4 on Saturday, 6 on Sundays and two on Mondays. All games nationally televised.

If at the end of December there's still no way to play postseason games at home, those teams who make the postseason stay there until the Super Bowl is over.

I guarantee you if you pitch this idea to Donald Trump right now, he will give the go-ahead to start work on it.

BaseballJones · Mar 31, 2020

djbayko said:
If that is going to be considered a “nightmare” then they shouldn’t start playing games until that attitude has changed.

It makes sense that the NBA and other leagues shut down because hey had no plan, plus they needed to be responsible corporate citizens and contribute to the “flatten the curve” movement.

At some point, we have to start gradually taking more risks as a society. Professional sports are full of some of the healthiest people on the planet.

I don't know if we can really know this information, but I'm wondering if we have a reasonable guess as to what population would get the coronavirus if society was operating more "safely". Clearly, if we went back to business as usual, with no safety measures (social distancing, masks, wiping things down, etc...I'm not even talking about closing schools or shutting down businesses or anything like that...just the basic stuff we can all do) in place, then it would be probably that the vast majority of the population would eventually get it.

But if one lesson we learn from this episode is that perhaps we ought to be a little more cautious about how we engage in public, what percentage of the public is likely to get this virus? Are we talking 25% (in a nation of 330 million, that would still be 82.5 million people)? Are we talking 50%? What's the rough guess?

Let's say it's one out of three people if we just use those measures. Now we know that ANYONE can die of it. Old and sick, young and healthy, we all have some risk of dying of this. But it's still clear that statistically the vast vast majority of people dying from it are old and who already have compromised health. That's the data from Italy and elsewhere.

So for MOST people up to age 60, say, you stand about a half a percent chance of dying from this *if you get it at all*. So I'm not a math guy, but if:

- 33% chance you get it
- 0.5% chance you die if you get it

Shouldn't the odds of a relatively healthy person under 60 dying from the coronavirus be basically 33% x 0.5% = 0.165%?

Of course I have no idea if the 33% number is correct or if I'm even doing the math right. But consider this: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/14/us/opioids-car-crash-guns.html

The odds of dying in a car crash are 1 in 103. That's not 1 out of every 103 trips in a car. I think that's over a lifetime. The point is that at some point we look at the actual risks of X and decide if X is worth it anyway. I'd venture to say if the actual odds of normal, healthy people under 60 of dying from coronavirus was 0.165% (or thereabouts), we wouldn't be nearly as concerned about it as we presently are, and more people would be willing to take risks with the virus in order to get back to some semblance of a normal life. Football included (there's the tie-in with the thread!).

Super Nomario · Mar 31, 2020

The Gray Eagle said:
The answer: Football Island.

Find a military base on an island. Start now on constructing a couple of football fields/TV studios there. These would be basically practice fields, only with TV gear. No bleachers or audience seats needed, just a field and broadcast setup. Build another really basic 32 football fields for practices.

Build living quarters to house a few thousand people for 6 or 8 months.

In August, move the whole league to the base. Anyone-- player, coach, broadcast personnel, media member-- who doesn't want to spend months and months on a remote military base can opt out and be replaced by someone who does. There will be enough people who want to play "NFL" football or work on covering the games to do this.

All players, coaches, broadcast crew, refs, etc. must test negative for the virus before being allowed on the plane. Anyone on base testing positive is either quarantined in separate facilities or sent back home and replaced by someone who tests negative.

Reassign any military personnel elsewhere who won't be needed for the production of the games and for maintaining the people there.

The league personnel stay on Football Island through December, playing a season. Play 2 games on Thursdays, 2 on Fridays, 4 on Saturday, 6 on Sundays and two on Mondays. All games nationally televised.

If at the end of December there's still no way to play postseason games at home, those teams who make the postseason stay there until the Super Bowl is over.

I guarantee you if you pitch this idea to Donald Trump right now, he will give the go-ahead to start work on it.

You definitely have not seen as many horror movies as I have.

djbayko · Mar 31, 2020

The Gray Eagle said:
The answer: Football Island.

Find a military base on an island. Start now on constructing a couple of football fields/TV studios there. These would be basically practice fields, only with TV gear. No bleachers or audience seats needed, just a field and broadcast setup. Build another really basic 32 football fields for practices.

Build living quarters to house a few thousand people for 6 or 8 months.

In August, move the whole league to the base. Anyone-- player, coach, broadcast personnel, media member-- who doesn't want to spend months and months on a remote military base can opt out and be replaced by someone who does. There will be enough people who want to play "NFL" football or work on covering the games to do this.

All players, coaches, broadcast crew, refs, etc. must test negative for the virus before being allowed on the plane. Anyone on base testing positive is either quarantined in separate facilities or sent back home and replaced by someone who tests negative.

Reassign any military personnel elsewhere who won't be needed for the production of the games and for maintaining the people there.

The league personnel stay on Football Island through December, playing a season. Play 2 games on Thursdays, 2 on Fridays, 4 on Saturday, 6 on Sundays and two on Mondays. All games nationally televised.

If at the end of December there's still no way to play postseason games at home, those teams who make the postseason stay there until the Super Bowl is over.

I guarantee you if you pitch this idea to Donald Trump right now, he will give the go-ahead to start work on it.

This is a cool idea. But someone s going to test negative while being a carrier because the virus hasn’t yet gained the critical mass necessary to show up on tests. So they’re going to have to deal with outbreaks no matter what.

People are going to get sick. We have to be willing to accept that.

The Gray Eagle · Mar 31, 2020

The league should definitely bring over some Bachelorettes to Football Island, along with a couple reality TV show producers. Each team could have its own The Bachelor: Football Island reality series to create even more programming.

It would actually be much easier to create NBA Island, since you'd need far fewer people and less space. And the NBA is all about the drama, so their reality shows would be even better.

Lose Remerswaal · Mar 31, 2020

Football Island is why Trump wanted to buy Greenland. He was ahead of this all along!

donutogre · Mar 31, 2020

Lose Remerswaal said:
Football Island is why Trump wanted to buy Greenland. He was ahead of this all along!

Dude is clearly playing 4D chess, on another level from us mortals.

Conigliaro's Potential · Mar 31, 2020

The Gray Eagle said:
The answer: Football Island.

Apart from you basically stealing the idea I floated for restarting the NBA over in the Port Cellar earlier today...

Conigliaro's Potential said:
I understand the advantages of trying to restart the season in Las Vegas...but on the basis that one positive test means the season is probably done, surely you'd be better off going to an isolated location where there's literally nowhere to go and nothing else to do off-campus (as it were), and make it clear to everyone involved that your responsibility to the league, the public and the world is to do nothing that would get anyone sick. I don't think Las Vegas is that place; could the NBA commandeer a large luxury hotel on an island somewhere with a big gym and weights room, at least one full-size basketball court capable of accommodating satellite television broadcasts, and enough space for players to go outside and exercise but secluded enough that they probably wouldn't come into contact with the general public? (Of course, even then the staff at this mythical hotel wouldn't be able to perfectly quarantine themselves; no plan like this can be foolproof, surely...)

...I don't think you've thought this through. How many weight rooms and how much fitness equipment would you need for 32 players' worth of NFL teams? How many practice fields, indoors and out? How would you feed everyone? How would you keep all of the players entertained between games and practices? Most importantly, how are you going to convince millionaire football players that it's in their interests to live like privates in the army for six months - away from their families and mansions, etc. - without tearing up the CBA and revising it in a way which is wholly player-friendly, and thereby unacceptable to the owners? I think this sort of plan *might* be feasible for the NBA; there's no way it works for the NFL.

lexrageorge · Mar 31, 2020

BaseballJones said:
I don't know if we can really know this information, but I'm wondering if we have a reasonable guess as to what population would get the coronavirus if society was operating more "safely". Clearly, if we went back to business as usual, with no safety measures (social distancing, masks, wiping things down, etc...I'm not even talking about closing schools or shutting down businesses or anything like that...just the basic stuff we can all do) in place, then it would be probably that the vast majority of the population would eventually get it.

But if one lesson we learn from this episode is that perhaps we ought to be a little more cautious about how we engage in public, what percentage of the public is likely to get this virus? Are we talking 25% (in a nation of 330 million, that would still be 82.5 million people)? Are we talking 50%? What's the rough guess?

Let's say it's one out of three people if we just use those measures. Now we know that ANYONE can die of it. Old and sick, young and healthy, we all have some risk of dying of this. But it's still clear that statistically the vast vast majority of people dying from it are old and who already have compromised health. That's the data from Italy and elsewhere.

So for MOST people up to age 60, say, you stand about a half a percent chance of dying from this *if you get it at all*. So I'm not a math guy, but if:

- 33% chance you get it
- 0.5% chance you die if you get it

Shouldn't the odds of a relatively healthy person under 60 dying from the coronavirus be basically 33% x 0.5% = 0.165%?

Of course I have no idea if the 33% number is correct or if I'm even doing the math right. But consider this: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/14/us/opioids-car-crash-guns.html

The odds of dying in a car crash are 1 in 103. That's not 1 out of every 103 trips in a car. I think that's over a lifetime. The point is that at some point we look at the actual risks of X and decide if X is worth it anyway. I'd venture to say if the actual odds of normal, healthy people under 60 of dying from coronavirus was 0.165% (or thereabouts), we wouldn't be nearly as concerned about it as we presently are, and more people would be willing to take risks with the virus in order to get back to some semblance of a normal life. Football included (there's the tie-in with the thread!).

The issues are the following:

a.) We don't want everyone getting it at once. Otherwise, hospital resources get overwhelmed, and the mortality rate for even young, healthy people goes well past the 0.65%. Even 20% of Americans getting it at once would overwhelm our health systems.

b.) Not everyone involved in putting together a football game is young. Belichick is in his upper 60's; so is Pete Carroll.

c.) Some people involved could unwittingly spread the illness to the more vulnerable members of our population. It's really hard to control the interactions of the few thousand players, coaches, training staff, production staff, etc.

The models say anywhere from 20% to 80% could get infected with the virus in a given year, depending upon the distancing measures being put in place.

It's entirely possible the risk calculations change between now and the fall. In fact, I'm fairly convinced that will happen to some degree. But it's very uncertain right now.

nighthob · Mar 31, 2020

Super Nomario said:
You definitely have not seen as many horror movies as I have.

Not everyone is old enough to have memories of the '89-'92 Patriots (especially that '90 Rod Rust squad, aka the Foxboro Horror Football Show).

nighthob · Mar 31, 2020

donutogre said:
Dude is clearly playing 4D chess, on another level from us mortals.

4d chess? His supporter begs to differ...

The Gray Eagle · Mar 31, 2020

Conigliaro's Potential said:
Apart from you basically stealing the idea I floated for restarting the NBA over in the Port Cellar earlier today...

Uh, no.

Conigliaro's Potential said:
...I don't think you've thought this through. How many weight rooms and how much fitness equipment would you need for 32 players' worth of NFL teams? How many practice fields, indoors and out? How would you feed everyone? How would you keep all of the players entertained between games and practices? Most importantly, how are you going to convince millionaire football players that it's in their interests to live like privates in the army for six months - away from their families and mansions, etc. - without tearing up the CBA and revising it in a way which is wholly player-friendly, and thereby unacceptable to the owners? I think this sort of plan *might* be feasible for the NBA; there's no way it works for the NFL.

You could get by with 16 practice fields, with teams getting half a day instead of a full day. No indoor fields needed.

You'd need weight rooms for each team. Or again, give each team half a day.

Not ideal, obviously. But the thing is, with every team in the same exact conditions, no one gets any competitive disadvantage from these issues. Everyone has to deal with them the same way.

Feeding everyone would be doable, since it's a military base that already feeds thousands, and all non-essential military personnel would be reassigned somewhere else. Teams could bring a chef and a nutritionist to elevate the level of food for their players as much as they could.

Players would have to entertain themselves. Soldiers do it all the time, with far less expensive gear to amuse themselves with. Most players would also be doing interviews and participating in reality TV shows in their downtime, building their brands. Those that don't want to do that don't have to.

Any individual who doesn't want to go to Football Island wouldn't have to. It'd be completely voluntary. You don't go, you don't get paid. You go, you get big money and fame.

This would be a one-time thing for one season. It would be the only way to actually have a season. As for the union, the NFL union is the weakest by far. If they are given the choice of getting big bucks to play the game or to go on strike and have no season (and to be viewed by everyone as the sole reason there was no season) they would play.

There are already thousands of people trying to make the NFL every year who don't get paid much of anything, risking their health in the short and long term just to try to get one shot at making a team. I think most of them would love to go to Football Island for 6 months to get rich and play on national TV.

Doesn't sound like you understand the football mentality very well.

Conigliaro's Potential · Mar 31, 2020

The Gray Eagle said:
There are already thousands of people trying to make the NFL every year who don't get paid much of anything, risking their health in the short and long term just to try to get one shot at making a team. I think most of them would love to go to Football Island for 6 months to get rich and play on national TV.

Doesn't sound like you understand the football mentality very well.

It sounds more to me like you're willing to accept scab labor masquerading as "the NFL" as a viable version of the league. Because I can't fathom why anyone making a couple of million dollars per year or more would sign off on this sort of project. Apart from the fact that these guys are human beings who have "made it" in the world and wouldn't want to go back to something worse than college dorm life, they're part of a union that simply wouldn't allow this kind of thing to happen.

Morgan's Magic Snowplow · Mar 31, 2020

djbayko said:
If that is going to be considered a “nightmare” then they shouldn’t start playing games until that attitude has changed.

It makes sense that the NBA and other leagues shut down because hey had no plan, plus they needed to be responsible corporate citizens and contribute to the “flatten the curve” movement.

At some point, we have to start gradually taking more risks as a society. Professional sports are full of some of the healthiest people on the planet.

The athletes may be young and healthy but everybody else involved in the NFL sure isn't.

The only way a season occurs is if there is a serious plan in place to limit the degree to which the virus can be transmitted throughout the league, probably through some kind of incredibly vigilant testing regime. Otherwise every Sunday will have its moment of silence for all the coaches, trainers, or long time team employees that died that week.

The Gray Eagle · Mar 31, 2020

I'm not pushing thi

Conigliaro's Potential said:
It sounds more to me like you're willing to accept scab labor masquerading as "the NFL" as a viable version of the league. Because I can't fathom why anyone making a couple of million dollars per year or more would sign off on this sort of project. Apart from the fact that these guys are human beings who have "made it" in the world and wouldn't want to go back to something worse than college dorm life, they're part of a union that simply wouldn't allow this kind of thing to happen.

Don't misunderstand me, I don't think it's a great idea for anyone other than the owners, TV and football fans. Personally, I wouldn't be that bothered if there was no NFL season. On the other hand, I'm addicted to this awful sport and would watch it if it happened, especially if we are still distancing and there are no other sports to watch.

I am just trying to imagine an idea that the awful NFL owners, greedy and crass TV networks and our current president might come up with to have a football season in a pandemic. And Trump absolutely wants there to be a football season. He's already "begged" the owners to not even think of canceling the season:
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/03/trump-awakens-to-the-covid-19-danger
And if the NFL owners, TV networks and Trump together decided that this was viable, then players union would not stop them.

There are surely a lot of other reasons why it wouldn't work, but the union wouldn't be the one to stop an idea like this if it got that far. I don't even buy that a majority of the individual players would vote against it.

djbayko · Mar 31, 2020

Morgan's Magic Snowplow said:
The athletes may be young and healthy but everybody else involved in the NFL sure isn't.

The only way a season occurs is if there is a serious plan in place to limit the degree to which the virus can be transmitted throughout the league, probably through some kind of incredibly vigilant testing regime. Otherwise every Sunday will have its moment of silence for all the coaches, trainers, or long time team employees that died that week.

Why not both?

I completely agree they need something like that - perhaps everyone must be tested before entering a football facility - along with other layers of risk mitigation. But no matter what you do, people are still going to get sick. If someone getting COVID-19 is considered a nightmare, then you just can’t play football.

Section30 · Mar 31, 2020

Six strong candidate vaccines

https://abcnews.go.com/Health/covid-19-vaccine-candidates-front-runners/story?id=69881230&cid=clicksource_4380645_2_takeover_2_headlines_hed

Most wouldn't make it to hospitals till Dec-Feb. Maybe in pharmacies middle of next year.

Conigliaro's Potential · Mar 31, 2020

And to step toward you as well, TGE, I think there are ways in which the NFL season could go ahead as well. I just don't think "Football Island" is remotely practical, even if you could find a location where it could happen. The NFLPA is weak, but not powerless; making players play in front of no fans in their own stadiums and while living in their own houses to earn their paychecks is one thing, but if the NFL really had a solution that involved effectively turning the players into army recruits for 5-6 months, the union ought to be extract some notable concessions (short term and longer term) to make that happen. And if not, I think enough high-profile players would bail (retiring, "holding out", etc.) to create the perception that this current season is a mockery and illegitimate. How many quarterbacks refusing to play would it take for the owners to back down?

If the league does go ahead this year, I think it will do so because things will have improved to where the entire country isn't on lockdown, and a certain level of risk will be accepted and understood by everyone across the country - not just football players, coaches, trainers, et al. It's hard to see what that might look like at this stage of the pandemic, but I think we'll likely be in a position where NFL games can happen; possibly not in September, but I think the league could run a schedule from October or even November that finishes as late as it wants to. And if pushing back the Super Bowl by two months to late March or even April means it can be played in front of fans by then, isn't that what the NFL would want to do? (Even if that means steamrolling other sports and their leagues in the process.)

Was (Not Wasdin) · Mar 31, 2020

NFL says it’s on like Donkey Kong.

http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000001108001/article/nfl-planning-to-begin-2020-nfl-season-as-scheduled

tims4wins · Mar 31, 2020

Was (Not Wasdin) said:
NFL says it’s on like Donkey Kong.

http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000001108001/article/nfl-planning-to-begin-2020-nfl-season-as-scheduled

Well if esteemed minds like Jeff Pash and Troy Vincent are on it then there’s no doubt... that there will be no NFL season.

Edit: what was the Vincent quote from DFG? “I never considered science” or something along those lines? Yeah. Science.

j-man · Mar 31, 2020

they will be a delay Canada just said no pubilc games utill june 30th

best case 12 game season start in oct hope no one tests posive

worst case no sports utill feb/march 21

I say NBA 5% shot NHL 1% SHOT MLB 30 % Shot NFL 50 % NCAA 5% SHOT

riboflav · Apr 1, 2020

It's like you're almost betting on Trump if you think the NFL will kick off without delay and play all 16. So, no, that's not going to happen. I think most (not all yet) SoSHers would agree.

Will the virus slow and mellow out with the return of cooler weather in October and November? Probably, almost definitely, not. So, I'd say the best you could figure odds that there's an NFL season that begins in 2020 is 50/50. And I'd bet south side and sleep well at night.

Not seeing TB12 in a Bucs uniform also helps.

McBride11 · Apr 2, 2020

riboflav said:
It's like you're almost betting on Trump if you think the NFL will kick off without delay and play all 16. So, no, that's not going to happen. I think most (not all yet) SoSHers would agree.

Will the virus slow and mellow out with the return of cooler weather in October and November? Probably, almost definitely, not. So, I'd say the best you could figure odds that there's an NFL season that begins in 2020 is 50/50. And I'd bet south side and sleep well at night.

Not seeing TB12 in a Bucs uniform also helps.

Maybe TB12 just decides to retire since he is, ya know, borderline in the elevated risk age range... Saves us all the pain.

Hendu for Kutch · Apr 2, 2020

riboflav said:
It's like you're almost betting on Trump if you think the NFL will kick off without delay and play all 16. So, no, that's not going to happen. I think most (not all yet) SoSHers would agree.

Will the virus slow and mellow out with the return of cooler weather in October and November? Probably, almost definitely, not. So, I'd say the best you could figure odds that there's an NFL season that begins in 2020 is 50/50. And I'd bet south side and sleep well at night.

Not seeing TB12 in a Bucs uniform also helps.

Wouldn't that be something if after all the hype Brady ended up being the Bucs equivalent to Holt/Wayne/Tebow/Decker/Lynch/Wilson/Addai.

tims4wins · Apr 3, 2020

The NFL already seems to be walking back Jeff Pash's stupidity

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/28989073/nfl-dr-allen-sills-says-certain-conditions-met-season-start

"I think what was implied there [by Pash] was to say we are not at a point where we are saying that is absolutely not going to happen so we should continue our planning and preparations as if we're going to be able to do that," Sills told NFL.com. "But obviously we're going to have to evaluate that along the way. And follow what the recommendations are from public health officials and from our infectious-disease experts and others."

"As long as we're still in a place where when a single individual tests positive for the virus that you have to quarantine every single person who was in contact with them in any shape, form or fashion, then I don't think you can begin to think about reopening a team sport," Sills told NFL.com. "Because we're going to have positive cases for a very long time."

"We will make those decisions in consultation with our experts at the time," Sills said. "That decision will not be made in isolation. The NFL will not be charting a course different than other professional sports, other parts of society -- college sports, universities, businesses."

bsj · Apr 3, 2020

i'd say less than 50% personally. Probably less than 25% a full season happens.

I actually think baseball in July may be more likely than football in September simply because there are fewer players in baseball and very little contact. It MAY (not saying will) be possible to set something up re: testing and some sort of isolating the players during that season...no fans of course.

Football...I cannot fathom how that would even work, as much as I want to.

PseuFighter · Apr 4, 2020

View: https://twitter.com/AdamSchefter/status/1246510219062054912?s=19

BigSoxFan · Apr 4, 2020

PseuFighter said:
View: https://twitter.com/AdamSchefter/status/1246510219062054912?s=19

I would like to bet against this

Harry Hooper · Apr 4, 2020

Even with drastic measures such as no-contact practices and the offense and defense training completely separately, a player or a coach is diagnosed on Friday morning before a game. what do you do with all the players this person was in close contact with that week?

tims4wins · Apr 4, 2020

View: https://twitter.com/lindseythiry/status/1246531599988150273?s=21

snowmanny · Apr 4, 2020

BigSoxFan said:
I would like to bet against this

Yes. And his opinion/will/wish will have zero impact on when the NFL resumes play.

Marciano490 · Apr 4, 2020

He’s like Commodus trying to give the people their games.

mauf · Apr 4, 2020

Harry Hooper said:
Even with drastic measures such as no-contact practices and the offense and defense training completely separately, a player or a coach is diagnosed on Friday morning before a game. what do you do with all the players this person was in close contact with that week?

You go ahead and play.

Seriously, the only way to play an NFL season is to assume all the players are going to get COVID-19. I think we might be ready to accept that by August. If not, they won’t play.

amfox1 · Apr 4, 2020

snowmanny said:
Yes. And his opinion/will/wish will have zero impact on when the NFL resumes play.

True. But if the NFL commences its season before election day, he will attempt to take credit. If the NFL doesn't he will blame blue state governors and attempt to make it an election issue.

riboflav · Apr 4, 2020

mauf said:
You go ahead and play.

Seriously, the only way to play an NFL season is to assume all the players are going to get COVID-19. I think we might be ready to accept that by August. If not, they won’t play.

And refs and coaches and ball boys and so on and so on.

mauf · Apr 4, 2020

riboflav said:
And refs and coaches and ball boys and so on and so on.

Someone smarter than me might find ways to manage those risks. But you’re not going to keep COVID-19 from ripping through the players’ ranks without changing the game in a fundamental way.

Which might be something we’re willing to accept in a few months. How many grocery-store workers do you think won’t catch COVID-19 between now and Labor Day?

Likelihood of an NFL 2020 Season

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