I don't think games will add thousands of deaths each week, but I am sure they will have them sign waivers and will claim that "you can't really dust for vo . . ." I mean "you can't really tell where they got sick".
Sounds like you missed the excellent "Football Island" post from @The Gray Eagle :
Maybe we will finally get some data on whether or not "extensive plastic surgery" is a comorbidity?!
Who is more desperate to get paid in fall 2020, the owners or the players? Bear in mind the owners know that the answer is the players. They will take any excuse they can get to beat the PA over the head with any available blunt instrument. Like a fellow player.
I'm glad you brought it back up, because I did miss it, and now I'll spend all afternoon dreaming about it.
I agree with this. I don't think they have fans in the stands but if its just a matter of endangering players and coaches then the combined weight of the NFL's financial interest and the pressure Trump will apply to have a real season should be enough to win out.
Yup, this is exactly my thinking. I think the only way we don't get a full 16-game season is if there is a player strike or if the Covid situation gets so bad that we have a nationwide ban on all sports or something like that. It certainly won't be a normal season - as with the other sports I assume a decent number of players will decide to opt out, there will probably be tweaks to roster rules, etc. - but this is the NFL we are talking about: there is no way the owners are going to willingly give up even a single regular season game's worth of TV revenue.
The NBA has much smaller rosters and staffs and the players will be quarantined for the majority of the remaining season. It's also coming at a low time in infection rates, while they are expected to (and already begun to) go back on the upswing. You're also talking about a set number of people in one location, participating in a controlled environment designed to minimize spread beyond those inside the bubble. You're need a shit ton more people spread across the country for the NFL. I'm not saying it won't end in tears, but they likely have the best shot at pulling it off.
It would be something if the NFL killed off its reigning super bowl winning coach.
JJ Watt: leading the charge of “we want to play” but also saying he wouldn’t play if they required face shields or face masks.
I doubt this will happen but if they were smart the NFL would build in two or so weeks of downtime between the end of the season and the playoffs where teams could make up games that were canceled. That would hardly be ideal either since it would mean some teams might get a ton of rest before the playoffs while others won’t, but it would seem to be the only way the NFL MIGHT be able to make it through the season without the entire schedule getting totally fucked.
You don't even need 15. What if the center gets and he passes it to the guards?
Going to be really interesting to see how they handle the 2021 draft if they can’t finish a season, particularly since you’ve got a potential franchise altering guy like Lawrence coming out. Not sure what the “fair” solution would be if they played, say, 6 games or something.
Next
I’ve said all along that the only way the NFL could do this is if they allow teams to have basically like 65-70 man rosters for this season. You keep 25 of them at a different site so that if you have even mass covid positives, you’ve got enough guys who haven’t been around the infected players who can fill in. It would make for some ugly football at times but if they want to complete the season, it seems hard to imagine without something like this.
There are what, close to 2000 guys in their twenties on rosters and practice squads, many in regions where compliance to safety precautions is lax? I'm sure they'll all be socially distancing at home and on their days/weeks off for the next six weeks.
Is this better than just grabbing street free agents and having them come in cold? Sure, in your scenario they can get some playbook experience (but not hands-on coaching with the regular coaching staff, since they're segregated), but the problem is trying to find like 500-600 extra guys leaguewide as opposed to just grabbing the best guy available and plugging him in.
Well yeah you get to keep them in your system and work with them. Hugely advantageous over grabbing people off the street. Plus, they're getting paid, which of course costs the NFL more money, and we know they're loathe to part with it, but if they want to have a season, and if they want the quality of football to not fall completely off a cliff, then this is a better solution than just grabbing guys off the street, IMO.
I'm thinking about a case like last year when the Pats picked up Marshall Newhouse off the street and plugged him in. He was better than the Dan Skippers and Cole Crostons they had in camp. But if teams have an extra 20-25 guys, Newhouse is probably on a roster somewhere, and the Pats are plugging in a preseason / practice squad caliber guy like Skipper or Croston (unless they were lucky enough to be the 1 team out of 32 to sign a guy like Newhouse).
I think everyone saying fewer than 16 here vastly overestimates the owners giving a single shit about the health and wellbeing of their players and staff. IMO, the only way they don't get to 16 games is (a) if a critical mass of state governments outright forbid the playing of games in their states or (b) the players get so concerned about contracting the virus that they go on strike. Neither of those seems particularly likely to me, so I'm pretty confident they will play all 16 games and a full postseason - even if they are playing with basically all practice squad players by the end.
I think I posted a suggestion in another thread here whereby in the event of a cancelled season, you'd measure each team's performance over the last 10 (or 20, etc.) years by number of Super Bowl wins, playoff wins, playoff appearances and regular season wins in some form or fashion and use that to determine the draft order - so the worst franchises in recent memory would get the best picks. No ping pong balls needed, although you could take the worst X teams from this list and put them into a draft lottery to determine the top three spots in the first round like the NBA does.
