Dave Carney 7/20/2020
The Green Bay Packers have decided to indefinitely postpone the start of their rookie training camp in the midst of the COVID-19 negotiations.
The NFL and its players at the same time have agreed to daily coronavirus testing for the first two weeks of NFL training camp. That’s good. The NFL’s had months to get their act together.
MLB took its fight public, and it got ugly fast. Over the weekend, the NFL was poised to do somewhat of the same thing. Players using #WeWantToPlay, and urging the NFL to come up with specific guidance on what it would do when training camps reopen, how many preseason games would there be, and what would positive tests do to a player’s status on the injured list? These and many other questions still remain, but at least the NFL and its players are moving together in a direction to get back out onto the field of play. The biggest and most worrisome concern for me, was that the NFL would turn in to what major league baseball did…which was a horrifying and public embarrassment of epic proportions.
In the midst of this global pandemic we need a distraction now more than ever, but all participants in the sport, any sport, have to be able to remain relatively confident their leagues, teams, and owners, are doing everything they can to keep them as safe and healthy as possible. That’s not just good business that’s called being a good human! I’m glad to see that the players and the owners have come up with a way to get testing going for the start of camp. How it goes on from there, we’re still not quite sure?
The Packers are being prudent, which is great, that’s what you should be during a pandemic. It’ll be interesting to see what the new dates are, and what protocols Green Bay wants to put in place that may end up leading the entire league. If one thing is for sure, the NFL has the might and the will to get through what has been the darkest season of sports in American history.
