64 Sunday,March 29, 2020 DAILY NEWSNYDailyNews.com
I
t’s a fair question to ask. In
fact, it’s only logical to ask
it at this point:
Is the 2020 NFL season
in jeopardy of being de-
laye d o r, le t ’s b e h one st,
cancelled?
The answer is that the
league is not there yet, not even
close. They are planning for a
season that starts on time, and
to get there, they are neck deep
in making dramatic changes to
teams’ offseason operations to
prepare remotely the best they
can during this coronavirus
pandemic.
Howev e r, c o n s i d e r t h i s
timeline logically: experts are
outlining a best-case scenario
of a 12-18-month timeline for a
va c c i n e t o c o n t r o l t h e
COVID-19 spread.
One NFL executive already
conceded to the league website
on Friday that
he e x p e c t s
te a m s wo n ’ t
be a b l e t o
ga t h e r t o -
gether in per-
son until late
July for train-
ing camp at the earliest.
And for the NFL to play
even one game, it needs to be
able to safely welcome around
6 1,500-80,000 fans into a sta-
dium. It must be able to guar-
antee all staff and players can
travel, collaborate, and come
into close contact without con-
tracting and spreading this
deadly virus.
How could the NFL pos-
sibly guarantee that type of
safety by Labor Day?
“In September, can we have
st a d i u m s w i t h p e o p l e i n
them?” the executive posted to
NFL.com. “I’m trying to watch
what’s going on in China mov-
ing toward normalcy. But who
knows?”
“I don’t see how there aren’t
massive delays up and down
the [NFL] calendar,” an AFC
head coach told Bleacher Re-
port, “including delay to start
of the season.”
“I’ll be shocked if we have
NFL football this fall, if we
have college football. I’ll be so
surprised if that happens,”
ESPN college football analyst
Kirk Herbstreit said on ESPN
Radio.
There are also two incom-
plete stadiums in Inglewood,
Calif., and Las Vegas for the
Rams, Chargers and Raiders,
respectively. Construction is
continuing on both sites for
now, but for how long? One
worker at Allegiant Stadium in
Vegas already tested positive
for the virus.
So the bottom line is that
while the NFL is not ready to
talk publicly yet about the pos-
si b i l i t y o f a d e l a y e d o r
cancelled season (they won’t
even push late April’s draftback), it would only make
sense that the league creates
contingency plans for those
scenarios.
And though they’re building
aregular season schedule that
starts on time for now, it’s rea-
sonable to assume they would
create a plan for a delayed slate
if it became clear it was neces-
sary.
First, though, they need to
focus on what to do tomorrow.
And right now the road to all of
the league’s decisions is paved
by daily communication be-
tween — and updates and rec-
ommendations from — NFL
chief medical officer Dr. Allen
Sills and NFL Players Associ-
ation medical director Dr.
Thom Mayer.
Their guiding goal is to pro-
tect the health of the public
and club and league employees
while continu-
ing the league’s
essential busi-
ne s s s a f e l y,
with an eye of
preparing for a
season.
And the first
st e p i n c l u d e s d i s c u s s i o n s
about virtual offseason activ-
ities where coaches and play-
ers can hold team and position
meetings, exchange playbooks
remotely, and stay on track for
the summer and fall.
For the Giants and other
teams with first-year head
coaches especially, this is a
critical element of this unprec-
edented offseason framework.
Teams with first-year head
coaches were scheduled to
start on April 6, two weeks be-
fore everyone else, an annual
rule that gives their fledgling
programs a head start.
Without having the players
in the building, a rookie coach
like Joe Judge certainly is not
going to accomplish the
same kind of work he’d
envisioned in his early
days running the team.
However, it would only be
fair to keep that advantage
in place for first-year
teams.
And I can promise you
that these conversations
are all happening but sim-
ply much more compli-
cated than usual.
The collective bargaining
agreement, for example, gov-
erns how many hours and days
ateam can practice and meet
with its players, the level of
practice they can perform, and
many other details.
So this is not just a league
decision. It’s also a conversa-
tion with the NFL Players’ As-
sociation about, for example,
how much time Giants offen-
sive coordinator Jason Garrett
is allowed to spend per day on
av i d e o c o n f e r e n c e w i t h
quarterback Daniel Jones in-stalling his new offense.
Fresh off the narrow pas-
sage of a new controversial
collective bargaining agree-
ment, then, it’s back to the
t a b l e f o r t h e N F L’s a n d
NFLPA’s leaders. But this
time they might not just be
talking about the rules gov-
erning their game.
By early summer, common
sense tells us they could be dis-
cussing whether or not there is
going to be a game in 2020 at
all.A GIANT STRATEGY
When new Giants corner
James Bradberry said Friday
that the team “came out of
nowhere” with a lucrative of-
fer at the start of free agency, I
wasn’t surprised and here’s
why: this is the Giants’ M.O.
They are well known for wait-
ing until the start of the
league’s legal tampering win-
dow to pick up the phone and
make that first offer.
This doesn’t mean the Gi-
ants never connect with freeagents’ representatives earlier
in the offseason or have pre-
liminary conversations. But,
as opposed to some teams
who have deals already nego-
tiated by the time that tam-
pering window opens, the Gi-
ants prefer to follow the letter
of the law and wait until that
window actually opens to talk
brass tacks.
To be clear: I’m not assign-
ing the Giants any moral high
ground here or demonizing
any other teams, just report-There’s a real possibility
PAT
LEONARD
GIANTSA SNAP
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