NFL 2020 Season

[Mattyman]

At this point  , do you believe that it  will be possible for the NFL to play football games  in 2020?


What are  your opinions?  thoughts?  odds....? 

 

 

[Guest]

Im voting yes but could see it played without fans in stadiums. 

[Guest]

There most likely won't be any vaccines available by next fall, so I would think all contact sports will be ruled out.  Yeah, stadiums full of people won't be happening anytime soon either, I'm afraid. 

I think most our "normalcy" returning depends on how quickly
we get effective vaccines. 

[Guest]

So lets see...

The fans:
USB holds about 63000, and if we spread everyone out 6 feet from each other...That'll be a big stadium - probably a mile or so wide by long. Hotdog lines will be pretty long with social distancing too. Only allow fans with anti-bodies lol!???

The Players:
How can the players play without potentially spreading the contagion? Putting themselves at serious risk? Only way I could see it is if every player is tested and only those with anti-bodies will play. 

The workers, trainers, tix takers:
Pretty clear they'd be @ risk 

Until there's a vaccine?  No football this year is my sad prediction...

[Guest]

I think the thing that makes it hard is the fact that every NFL city will be on a different timeline. San Francisco could be completely flat while, say, Dallas could be peaking. 

I think it's possible to play the season without a vaccine if we can figure out a way to get everyone tested on a regular basis. 

[Guest]

Training Camps in August? mini-camps, OTA's? rookie camps, rookie symposiums. Some of this stuff is right around the corner. 

I'm thinking about the training rooms, locker rooms, weight rooms, cafeterias, the player proximity. 

Will we see a difference of opinion among owners vs players association?

Might we see players playing in empty stadiums???

UGH

[Guest]

@MaroonBells said:
I think the thing that makes it hard is the fact that every NFL city will be on a different timeline. San Francisco could be completely flat while, say, Dallas could be peaking. 

I think it's possible to play the season without a vaccine if we can figure out a way to get everyone tested on a regular basis. 

That's asking a lot when about .8% of the us population has been tested to-date. Something close to that. 

[Guest]

@purplefaithful said:

@MaroonBells said:
I think the thing that makes it hard is the fact that every NFL city will be on a different timeline. San Francisco could be completely flat while, say, Dallas could be peaking. 

I think it's possible to play the season without a vaccine if we can figure out a way to get everyone tested on a regular basis. 

That's asking a lot when about .8% of the us population has been tested to-date. Something close to that. 

We're way behind on that, but that's something that could grow as exponentially as the virus. Just need a commitment to do it. And leadership. 

[Guest]

The future of fandom: Professional sports leagues in U.S. consider games without fansInitial return of sports in the U.S. might come in eerily empty arenas and stadiums
Taunting the goalie.

Roaring for a last-second basket.
Singing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” during the seventh-inning stretch.
Fan reactions are the pulse of live sporting events, a soundtrack that’s as visceral to the games as the action itself.
But the return of the NHL, NBA and Major League Baseball could come with a record scratch — no fans at games.
“It would definitely be different,” Wild defenseman Ryan Suter said.
As leagues remain shuttered during the coronavirus pandemic, possibilities for reigniting play have taken center stage — including the potential of resuming hockey and basketball, and starting the baseball season, without fans in attendance.
While logistics could be complicated, scenarios continue to emerge to reintroduce pro sports during unpredictable times.
“It’s not something we want,” Twins third baseman Josh Donaldson said. “It’s not something we’re going to necessarily enjoy, fans not being there. But if it’s something we have to do, you have to pay that price.”
In the month since the NHL and NBA suspended their seasons and MLB delayed Opening Day, the futures of the leagues have only become more vague.
NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman acknowledged in an interview with NBC Sports Network the possibility that the league won’t be able to complete its regular season but also said the NHL could play well into the summer.
“Nothing’s been ruled in,” he said. “Nothing’s been ruled out.”
That would appear to open the door for reconvening without fans in arenas or having neutral-site games.
“I certainly don’t want to leave the impression that the neutral site or empty building scenario is anything we favor or are zeroing in on,” Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly wrote in an e-mail to the Star Tribune. “We are looking at all options and possibilities [and] vetting them all thoroughly so when the landscape begins to settle into some degree of predictability, we are in a position to react and plan quickly.”
Moving NBA games to Las Vegas is a suggestion that’s been floated; Grand Forks has been mentioned as a possible NHL destination; and a similar concept is being broached in baseball that would have all 30 clubs play at stadiums in Arizona with no fans. Teams would live in a semi-quarantine, limited mostly to traveling between ballparks and team hotels, according to reports.

Publicly, though, MLB hasn’t endorsed the format.
“While we have discussed the idea of staging games at one location as one potential option, we have not settled on that option or developed a detailed plan,” the league said in a statement. “While we continue to interact regularly with governmental and public health officials, we have not sought or received approval of any plan from federal, state and local officials, or the Players Association.”
A USA Today story suggested MLB officials have kicked around the idea of realigning the leagues to form divisions based on training camp sites. Florida and Arizona are each host to 15 teams during spring training.
Plenty of questions
What stands in the way of all these variations are the guidelines outlined by the White House to slow down COVID-19 and the stay-at-home orders issued by most states.
If those restrictions loosen, games could become more realistic, but the leagues would still have quite a checklist to work through to stage them.
Scoreboard operators are vital; same with statisticians.

But what about security for the building? And how many members of the media would be permitted? Do front-office personnel need to watch in-person? Doctors are probably essential, but are cooks?
Are any of these groups scaled back to make social distancing easier?
And there’s also the health of the players to consider, especially in the NBA and NHL where there is constant body contact. Teams have tried to play through pandemics — the 1919 Stanley Cup Finals were called off after five games when most of the Montreal Canadiens got the Spanish flu; defenseman Joe Hall died.

Must-hear TV
The sound of games would be dramatically different without fans, and that would have a profound effect on television broadcasts — which, under these circumstances, would be even more significant since they would show what’s happening in real time to the public.
“Imagine an NBA player. They do a tremendous dunk, and traditionally they feed off the crowd and all that emotion of the game. That’s not going to be there,” said Mike Dimond, Fox Sports North’s senior vice president and general manager.
“Every league is about entertainment and trying to create this entertainment. So, the structure of the atmosphere around, whether it’s a baseball diamond or a hockey rink or a basketball court, that dynamic is just going to change.”
Unusual territory

On April 29, 2015, the Orioles and White Sox played in what’s believed to be the first game in MLB history without fans after riots broke out in Baltimore amid tensions between locals and police.
Music played between innings and the scoreboard was illuminated, but the kiss cam disappeared. The national anthem was a recording.
“It seemed rather odd, to say the least,” Donaldson recalled.
A watered-down version like that, however, could be on the horizon — even if players don’t like it.
Asked last month, Wolves players said they wouldn’t be in favor of playing without fans.
“I wouldn’t enjoy it at all,” guard D’Angelo Russell said before the NBA went on hiatus. “It would be hard to get up for that. I don’t even know what that would look like to be honest. I think you would hear the commentators over there the whole time. It’d be weird.”
Adjusting to the change would be tough, Donaldson said, but to get baseball back in front of fans, games might have to return this way.
Cloudy future

Given the continued spread of the coronavirus and procedural hurdles the leagues would have to clear — on top of ensuring the safety of all involved — playing without fans could be a pipe dream at best, even if that’s what the White House is eyeing.
“I want fans back in the arenas,” President Donald Trump said at a recent news briefing. “Whenever we are ready. As soon as we can, obviously.”
What could be a trickier issue for the leagues is getting fans to show up if play resumes without a vaccination for COVID-19.
According to a Seton Hall poll, 72% of 762 respondents said they would not attend games if leagues restarted before a vaccine is developed. Only 13% said they would feel safe attending; 12% said they would attend only if there was social distancing.
Either way, the forecast for pro sports is uncertain.
That seems to be the only guarantee for now.
https://www.startribune.com/the-future-o...569572832/

[Guest]

I think there will be no NFL season in 2020, and I wonder if Rick Spielman was already planning for it at the beginning of March. There are things Spielman does which I don't agree with (e.g., hoarding day 3 draft picks), but I think he's a smart guy and he might have suspected this could be a lost year. That would make this tepid Vikings offseason more understandable, wouldn't it?

• Get rid of aging vets like Rhodes, Joseph, Griffen, and Kline who are going to be even older by 2021 - and older players often suffer more from a long layoff.
• Don't go "all in" for a big push in 2020, either in free agency or by trading for Trent Williams.
• A corollary of the above - don't spend a lot in free agency or contract extensions in a year which may generate no revenue.
• Don't panic about the depleted secondary or pesky OL issues - you have two drafts to replenish the roster.
• Trade Diggs for draft picks for the two-year plan.

There are a lot of questions if the season is canceled. Will 2020 player contracts be tolled into 2021? Will players be paid? Will there be another free agency period in 2021, or everyone just stay in their current places?
I think there will be a 2021 draft even if the college season is not played this fall - students will keep attending school online and graduate, and some players who are 3 years from high school will want into the NFL. But that will be a weird draft, scouting primarily off 2019 games. I assume if no NFL season is played the 2021 draft will follow the same order as 2020, but even that could be argued.
Think about the impact regarding players who are rehabbing from injury. Example: if you ran the Bengals, and think there may be no games played in 2020, would you pick Tua instead of Burrow?