The National Football league still has months to think about whether the coronavirus will actually impact the regular season, but the amount of people contracting the virus and many others dying from it has a lot of high ranking folks around the league thinking it will be a short season.
According to Bleacher Report’s Mike Freeman, there is a growing concern among coaches that the start of the NFL’s season will not only start as scheduled, but it could be shortened to 14 games.
“I don’t see how there aren’t massive delays up and down the [NFL] calendar,” the coach told B/R in a text, “including delay to start of season.”
Again, it’s early, and no one has a time machine. But an increasing pessimism is spreading among some coaches that the start of the season will not begin as scheduled.
“It’s really hard to know about long-term impacts,” Ravens president Dick Cass told the team’s website. “A lot of that is going to depend on how long the stay-at-home order remains in effect. If it lasts a long time, it could have obviously an effect on our season. No one expects that, but you just don’t know. …
“I just don’t think the OTAs are going to happen at all. I hope I’m wrong. I’m hoping we can get some players in (the facility) in June, but I’m sort of doubtful of that.”
The NFL has already had to cancel any and all events scheduled for Las Vegas in regards to the Draft and just recently closed all team facilities until April 8th.
One NFC head coach added that the league could see a 14-game schedule as a result of the virus.
“I’d be personally in favor of delaying the draft so that we could get some of the work done that our scouts and personnel people ordinarily do,” Saints general manager Mickey Loomis said on NBC Sports’ The Peter King Podcast. “And then just the logistics of trying to conduct the draft with not having access to your draft rooms and your offices creates a lot of logistic problems.
“This is not a fantasy draft that you conduct out there with just a list of things on a piece of paper. There’s a lot of things that go into it to prepare, and there’s a lot of work that is done during the draft.”
Commissioner Roger Goodell has already sent out a memo stating that the Draft will continue as scheduled on its April 23-25 dates, but it will be vastly different from past years.
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This is our new normal in 2020.
