58 minutes ago
“Are you ready to play soccer ?? Tuesday night party ??“
Buffalo Bills and Tennessee Titans.
Think.
Hank Williams Jr. must return to the studio to re-record the old “Monday Night Football” opening. Because thanks to covid-19 scheduling accumulation, I don’t think tonight’s match will be the last Tuesday night competition you’ll see.
This year or in the future.
If the ratings are good, the NFL will make it happen again in 2021. This time on purpose.
Unless the league is ready to create a buffer for Week 18 before the qualifiers, they may need to use some of the remaining Tuesday dates as options to squeeze in the rescheduled matches. This may be the only way to overcome schedule interruptions due to the Coronavirus.
In fact, if the league were really smart, they might only want to put a full farewell at Week 14 (starting Thursday, December 10 after all clubs have completed the originally scheduled farewell weeks) instead of Week 18.
Use week 14 as a storage station for games that cannot be rescheduled. I hope you can get through the past three weeks without any further delays, that way, the first two teams at the conference won’t have to worry about two consecutive weeks.
Yup, that would push the Super Bowl back a week. It’s better to do it now, though, than to do it in Stampede mode a month before the match.
Other than that, I’m not sure how long the NFL can keep adjusting the schedule to keep this season without losses.
The biggest problem the NFL needs to solve is knowing the value of its test. After all, Commissioner Roger Goodell is spending $ 75 million on the lightning-fast non-stop coronavirus testing campaign. We’re talking about 120 grading tests per team per day.
Well done. It is useful to learn about positive cases.
But what about the dozens of negative Tests per team the NFL basically ignores after one or two positive tests come out?
The Giants are the only team with a true outbreak of Coronavirus. The Patriots had few cases. Their facilities were closed, and they were part of the scheduled games. The Chiefs had a player and a strength coach is reported. The Chicago Bears have been closed for a while after a player was injured. The Jets and Cardinals almost rescheduled a match due to one positive mistake in New York.
This is madness.
We are talking about a global pandemic. It is claimed that the league – and the world – are interacting the way they are because this virus is so easily transmissible. Thus, you can take a lot of precautions as the infection persists anyway.
So, to play and practice a contact sport like soccer, you mock the logic of the best way to avoid this disease, right?
Social distancing? Hide and sterilize between plays? Forget all of that. The NFL decided to play.
Great. Then … play.
Play through it. Use extended training teams. Play with players who have tested negative.
That’s what a college game does. As long as teams can form a team. In September Virginia Tech won the ACC game despite 23 players missing due to positive tests for coronavirus and contact tracing.
Or, if that’s risky, that’s fine. close.
Other than that, you’ll be having a few more weeks of risk in October and November, while reducing your chance of hitting the Super Bowl in February.
Here’s the critical issue. At some point, the NFL has to ask itself, if midfielder Joe Blue tests negative, what does that really mean?
Is midfielder Joe Blow really being perceived as negative? Or – if he comes across one injured teammate – is midfielder Joe Blue Really Seen as “Not positive … yet. “
Because of the incubation period, there appears to be an assumption of infection for the entire team. This is the way the NFL behaves. Negativity means nothing more than “not positive … yet” if there is one positive on your list.
This is safe. An abundance of caution. Sure.
It’s also an impossible standard to maintain in a sport like this for six months.
Steelers coach Mike Tomlin has alluded to this school of thought as “one mindset fails, it all fails”. In other words, “If one of us were lazy about protocols and the tests were positive, we’d all drop as a result.”
Here’s a great way for Tomlin to encourage safety. But it is not the way the NFL should be governed.
If one of the positive tests out of two complete listings – like Arizona versus New York – is that nearly the minimum for starting rescheduling, take off now.
Why bother Because, honestly, I think the league has defied the odds to be close to viruses so far due to the close contact nature of the sport.
In particular, I am thrilled at the lack of contact tracing positives between infected teams (like Titans in Week 3) and uninfected opponents (like Vikings in Week 3).
I’m “ready for some football.” I’ve been since March. I’ll take it any night if it’s available. Just keep making it available. Or take it from me now.
Investing in a season, and then seeing it fade because the NFL couldn’t make the schedule work, would be worse than not seeing it start at all.
Tim Benz is a writer for Tribune Review. You can contact Tim at [email protected] or via Twitter. All Tweets can be reposted. All emails are subject to publication unless specified otherwise.
Categories:
Sports Steelers / NFL | Breakfast with Benz
Tv fanatic. Freelance thinker. Social media enthusiast. Total bacon lover. Communicator.