We heard from both the NFL and NFLPA about their return to play situation this past week.
As of right now, the NFL has told teams that training camps will start as scheduled, with rookies reporting on Tuesday, quarterbacks and injured players on Thursday, and then veterans report on July 28.
Expect many teams to delay things a few days. For example, the Dolphins pushed back their rookie reporting date two days, according to the Miami Herald.
The NFLPA has told its players to start the process to report, because the NFL "owns the plant" — they set the times and working conditions. But at any point, if the NFLPA does think the working conditions aren't safe for the players, they could file a grievance (that would likely include an injunction) to halt work at the plant. And then we would get into hearings ... it could still get messy.
"We have looked at all of our options," said NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith.
Indeed, we've seen some of this on Sunday. The NFLPA held a conference call with its highest-profile players, and they are starting to become vocal on social media with an organized campaign about workplace conditions.
https://twitter.com/AdamSchefter/status/1284882215139258368
https://twitter.com/NFLPA/status/1284887099695681538
This feels like the beginning of a grievance process that would affect the start of the NFL season.
"We formed a task force back in March," said Smith. "We started pulling those people together even before the CBA was ratified. We entered a (memorandum of understanding) that’s an extension of the collective bargaining agreement in April, I believe, that dictated how we were going to approve the opening plans or response plans by the teams. Those were agreed upon. The protocols would be sent to the teams, and then the teams have to demonstrate how they’re going to comply with those items. The teams got that back to the union, some of the teams got that back to the union last night. And, now, the mission is us looking at those plans and ensuring that the teams can actually meet the obligations that the joint task force have laid out. So, it’s a long way of saying all of those things are going to factor into the league’s decision to start now.”
With that in mind, and after talking to several people on all sides of this issue, let's look at what we think the NFL calendar will look like to start the season:
ROOKIES REPORT AUG. 4, QBS/INJURED PLAYERS AUG. 6, VETS AUG. 11
This would be a two-week delay and would result from a grievance filed by the union. The players still don't know what the exact protocols are or how much testing there will be — and they want daily testing. If the NFL does not give in, a court is going to have weigh in on this.
"One of the reasons that we believe in daily testing is ... if one person tests positive, if you’re not testing every day, and if you are subject to testing on every other day or every other two days and you factor in the scientific levels of false positives and false negatives, even before you add the compounding factor of mistakes or people who aren’t administering the test the right way, you’re definitely in a situation where you would have to potentially over quarantine people. Does that make sense?" Smith said. "You have to take steps based on what you are concerned about with exposures. Well, one of the ways to decrease those actions is to test every day because then once you have Player A test positive, you can make decisions about the extent to whether that person was in contact with somebody else, how long they were in contact with someone else, to extent to which they may have transmitted a viral load to that other person, but also engage in testing of that person every day. And we’re at the ability now in some places where you can get tests back in three or four hours. So, I’m really sort of loathe to engage in broad hypotheticals that don’t envision multiple — I’m sorry — daily testing as well as very intended contact tracing. On that and everything I’ve read from Dr. Fauci, who in my personal opinion, you know, if you’re looking for heroes in this, you found one in that guy. But I think that everything I’ve heard and read from him, the CDC, HHS, [inaudible] it won’t be perfect. But the ability to test daily and to efficiently and effectively contact trace, all of that fits into that matrix.
"(The NFL has) pushed back hard on daily testing. But one of the reasons we have been such proponents of daily testing is going back to something (NFLPA President) JC (Tretter) said earlier: anybody can start the season, but I believe daily testing increases our chances of finishing.”
TWO WEEKS OF JUST CONDITIONING — THROUGH AUG. 25
There is a big difference between the lockout (2011) and now: players had the ability to workout anywhere they wanted before reporting, and injuries still rose dramatically.
"Under the lockout, you could go to any private gym and workout and stay in shape. That wasn’t the case this year. There were private gyms closed. Guys went over a month without being able to train," said Tretter. "So, I would argue guys are in worse physical shape coming out of this break than out of the lockout break. And then comparing it to the lockout and the injury spikes, the 25% overall injuries, 44% hamstring strains, over double the amount of Achilles injuries ... how do you bring a guy back? So, the recommendation from our joint committee was 21 days of conditioning and getting your body back in shape before being thrown back into the fire of a reactionary environment of a football game or a football practice."
ONE WEEK OF NON-PADDED PRACTICES — THRU SEPT. 1
This is going to have to be closely monitored by the NFLPA, which gets access to daily practice films. I've seen non-padded practices that are just as physical as with pads.
"We want a slow ramp-up of non-padded practices, 10 days, to get back used to reacting instead of knowing when you’re cutting, back to reacting to other bodies out there, loading the tissue in your body the right way to make sure we don’t have a spike in soft tissue injuries," Tretter said.
TWO WEEKS OF PADDED PRACTICES — THRU SEPT. 15TH
"That’s the build up from the people who study the science, who track this data for a decade recommends as the best way guys get from zero coming out of this long break to game speed by the end of it," said Tretter.
ONE PRESEASON GAME — SEPT. 19TH
This will be a point of negotiation. If the NFL really wants two preseason games for their team coffers (one home, one away) — and that's the plan right now but it hasn't formally been announced (the NFL still lists all four preseason games) — then they'll likely have to give on the ramp-up to the season, which would include three weeks of conditioning instead of two.
NFL SEASON OPENER — OCT. 1; EVERYONE ELSE — Oct. 4
The entire schedule would just be pushed back three weeks, all 16 games would be played, and the Super Bowl would be Feb. 15th or 21st, depending on if the NFL wanted to eliminate the Super Bowl bye week (the 15th would put the game on President's Day Weekend).
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Make no mistake, this is serious business to the players and this is not yet over. But there is a reasonable and sensible way forward that both protects the players and allows the NFL to continue to make money. But the NFL has to listen to its players, and look at the long-term when it comes to financial loss that will affect the salary cap going forward.
"If we had our preference, we would never want the players of this year, and to a certain extent next year, unfairly bear the brunt of a massive decrease in revenue in football," said Smith. "They are taking the most risk by coming back to work at this point in time. And we know we’re in the business of football and we know we’ve got a long term collective bargaining agreement and our job is to represent and make the decision for past, present, and future. But for the guys who are taking the massive increase, relative increase in risk this year and next, compared to three, four, five years in the future, we want to figure out what’s fair. So, that now we talk about the spread, but that also talks about reaching the right decisions about what happens to a player this year that decides to opt-out. What happens with his contract? What happens with making sure that COVID is treated as a workplace injury where if you do need healthcare based upon you getting the virus or having downstream medical issues because of this virus, how do we ensure that you’re covered by worker’s compensation? .... All of those things are connected into what the package will be. And then to backtrack, all of those are connected with us making sure that we are in a world where first and foremost our guys are doing is safe as possible.”
NICKEL PACKAGE
1. As of 1 p.m. Sunday, with the rest of the high-profile NFL players being heard from on social media, Tom Brady had remained silent. Hoping that changes at some point because players could really use Brady's bully pulpit. But we know if there's one NFL player who needs this season to start on time and finish, it would be the 43-year-old Brady, whose clock is ticking.
2. That Rob Gronkowski was given a Madden rating of 95 overall ... it's just an insult to many other players. Gronkowski was a 95 back in 2017. He's an 85 or less right now.
https://twitter.com/AdamSchefter/status/1284177509022683137
3. Two things the anti-Joe Thuney trade people are missing out on: he may technically be a one-year rental, but another team could be more willing to tag him again to work out an extension — he's definitely not gone after one season; and Thuney and his agent could have a verbal extension worked out at the time of the trade. A lot of things can happen to make a trade a reality — that's why an in-season trade has always been more likely for both sides.
4. Good reporting by Mike Reiss that Mohamed Sanu has moved a coach into his house for offseason work. But this goes along with players who are at the facility every day in the offseason, or working out with other players ... it doesn't mean they're going to be good or stay healthy. They still have to do it on the field.
5. The Washington Post's story on the sexual harassment of female employees and media members was sickening to read. Most read this as an indictment on Daniel Snyder — who doesn't deserve an NFL team — but I read it as an indictment of the league. The same things go on with other teams. It's vitally important that the NFL lead from the top and make teams take many more steps to make women feel more comfortable and accepted in the workplace and in the media. The NFL must come out with mandatory guidelines in human resources and the reporting of incidents that would be investigated by the league, not the team.