The NFL Needs To Follow The NHL On Re-Opening. Fast.
Memo to: Roger Goodell
Commissioner NFL
Hey Dog. Must be lonely with no one to man-hug these days. But everyone has to sacrifice in these crazy times.
Speaking of crazy times. Don’t know whether you’ve noticed lately, but you and your league are steaming toward a big shiny object, and it’s not going to end well. (see: Titanic) Lots of us admired your just-get-on-with-it stance toward the Covid-19 pandemic. The NFL’s determination to restore normalcy with the draft and a full sked is admirable.
But we at IDLM can’t help but notice that your model for re-opening in September is getting a thorough vetting in #MLB these days. It’s been about three weeks now. If we were to choose a word that describes baseball’s results it would probably be… disastrous.
Briefly, #MLB owners and players spent all spring and early summer arguing over who would get the most money and who was a ferret face and stuff like that. When they finally got around to actually designing their 60-game schedule they adopted your scheme to have teams play in their home parks and travel around the continent in (semi) isolation. No fans.
As I say, disastrous best sums up the experience they’re having. (Although the cutout fans are a treat) Through bad luck, carelessness and boys-will-be-boys #MLB is experiencing a plague of positive Covid19 tests with series being cancelled. Virtually none of these 20-30 year olds will experience anything worse than mild cold or flu symptoms. Many won’t know they’re infected. But, say the scolds, we can’t have anyone dying for our entertainment.
No matter that young men played through the 1968 Hong Kong flu for our entertainment without dying.( It killed 80 K of all ages when the U.S. had 200 million people.) The current percentage of deaths in the U.S. under the age of 30 after a positive Covid test = 0.5. Almost all them had underlying symptoms. But sure, the senseless slaughter.
We digress. The standard has been set that anyone testing positive must be isolated for a period of days or longer. Now, with so many players and teams being held out, there are grave concerns that #MLB will not finish the season— even under restricted conditions. Your fellow commissioner Rob Manfred told the MLB Players Association that cancellation has become a real possibility.
But it didn’t have to be this way. Those boys in the sports’ remedial class, the NHL, came up with another idea, and they came up with it early. Hub cities. Two of ‘em. Players in a bubble. No clubbing, no partying, no fun. Fences up to keep strangers out. For as much as eight weeks in Edmonton.
While it sounds like no fun (it isn’t), the have games/ no travel regime seems to be working. There were zero positive tests in the first week of the NHL playoffs. Players are hurting each other again (see: Matthew Tkachuk), but there haven’t been any games cancelled or delayed or played as a doubleheader at 8 A.M. in a barn outside St. Albert. In short, this plan works reasonably well.
Your league, however, seems hellbent on following the #MLB model of travel, different cities, no fences, but lots of testing to find out just who has the virus but isn’t technically sick. Why do we think this is taking unnecessary chances? (We note Detroit QB Matthew Stafford is already a Covid casualty along with four of the team’s other stars. Although being sick and a Lion seems redundant.)
There’s still time to save your season. Before you’re cancelling games because the equipment guy for the Rams or Bill Belichick’s sign stealer… er, research assistant… turn up positive, get a plan to have teams play in a hub city. One city with five or six teams. Have them play each other in a triple round-robin. (Wow, Packers/ Bears three times in a season).
Then the playoffs and Super Bowl in hub cities, too. Yes, there will still be positive tests— this is a virus after all that has killed over 150,000 in the U.S. But it allows a semblance of control so that the season can finish with rosters intact.
You know this is the proper decision. We also know that it hurts you have to admit Gary Bettman is actually right about something. Man up.
When that is done, please don’t tell us you’re going to emulate the #NBA re-education camp model after #BLM pressure from the media Johnnys who cover your league. Even if kneeling and grovelling placates the pant-wetting corporate sponsors and networks the kow-towing to the radicals in your workforce is going to end badly for you.
So don’t play the anthems. Remove the proscenium for the political actors, Take the heat out of the issue. To paraphrase Nike: Just Don’t Do It.
Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster (http://www.notthepublicbroadcaster.com). The best-selling author of Cap In Hand is also a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada's top television sports broadcaster, his next book Personal Account with Tony Comper will be available on BruceDowbigginBooks.ca this fall.