DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Pure Football Forum Covid Related NFL News

The main issue as I see it is the collective bargaining agreement. The parameters and guidelines imposed would have to be hashed out and voted on by both the collective body of the owners and the players. I doubt that could be accomplished in a timely fashion.

Seems to me that would have been ironed out from the beginning.

It was and between them the plan they have now is what they agreed on. I have no idea what was proposed in the very beginning by the NFL. I would imagine that if players were requested to stay in a bubble they would have demanded monetary compensation for it. Not sure how that went down.

If the Titans did indeed break protocol I think they may be forced to forfeit. It isn’t fair to the rest of the league.

If they broke protocol it would be dangerous to the rest of the league.

That's a difficult thing to say. I haven't seen any evidence that any of them broke protocol. But here is an example of it....

10 Las Vegas Raiders players fined for violating coronavirus protocols at Darren Waller's charity event, source says

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/3004...ent-source-says

I said if because the NFL hasn’t weighed in yet. There is video of them (allegedly) practicing at a high school after their facilities were closed due to positive tests.

I was talking about fines and such.

Due to team size and schedule structure, locking down football would be nearly impossible.

You have larger teams by a factor of two or three times. You have tons of equipment to store, and most teams play on the same day of the week.

I am sure cost may have played a factor, but not as large as some think. I don't think the NFL could have done much more than already implemented.

The only real thing that probably should have been done is two fold.

First, 3-4 bye weeks should have been scheduled where every team in the league was on bye. That way re-scheduling games wouldn't be very hard.

Second, the schedule itself should have been announced in patchwork. Say weeks 1-4, then weeks 5-8 and so on. That way the league would have had more flexibility to match up teams.

That would create some logistics issues, such as lodging. I am sure the NFL has enough sway with their hotel partners to be able to work that out.

I wasn't aware of that. Thanks.

Cancel the 2 interconference games, and you have a 14 week season.

And has there been any connection between positive tests and games?

What you say makes a lot of sense. In hindsight I agree with you. I do think that would have posed its own set of problems however.

I mean I'm pretty sure we both agree that the NFL cares a great deal about corporate image. If you put policies in place basically admitting you may need 3-4 bye weeks for what you expect may result, you would be looking at a situation where the public sees that as you admitting it's not safe to hold the season.

I feel it's pretty safe to say that many of the decisions surrounding this virus have been designed more on the basis of money than safety. But when you put policies in place from the very beginning that pretty much say that going into the season? Well, I don't think that's the image they wanted people to see.

THey very well may end up doing that; however, trying to operate within the current schedule makes the most sense. THe problem with adding a week later is what if a team has two or more games postponed? They're still limited to what they can make up by adding 1 or 2 more weeks at the end.

Players union, owners, TV deals, etc..... there are easily a half dozen or more roadblocks to even the simplest solution.

They should have done is use bye-weeks to their advantage, have 2 bye-weeks and instead of spreading them out, have AFC one week, NFC another week.

Cancel the inter-conference games. Now you have a total of 3 weeks that a conference could use to make up games, and only 1 week (most likely a break between regular and post-season) where there would be NO Games scheduled.

A one or two week full-league Bye after each quarter season would have enabled a TON of flexibility.

However, among other difficulties that would have to be overcome is the fact that this would push the post-season all the way to March or early April, and now the season is colliding with the regular off-season schedule... most importantly, the standard end of league year and contract expirations. Pretty much every player, team, and coach would have to re-evaluate their contracts and dates therein and get modifications done so that dates reference the new league year and not a specific date, etc... it's a GIGANTIC can of worms and technically no player could be held required to do it.

j/c...

I agree the NFL cares about corporate image. All business does as most people care about theirs.

I don't see it as the season shouldn't have been played. I see it as planning for blips.

No doubt money plays a role. It always does. That said, I don't think they started the season at the expense of player or public safety.

No doubt.

Nothing is perfect. Maybe just alter current bye weeks and have all teams take them then, plus maybe one more.


Anyway, it's screwed up no matter which way you go.

Forfeits? Only play the ones that are games having potential playoff impact, like Cavs didn't play out. This is getting curiouser and curiouser. Just running out of corners to paint yourself into. I assume we won't see the SB and finals postponed on a week-to-week basis.

Keep us posted, NFL.

I think you are wrong about how important the cost of isolating the players during the week is. I think it's very significant.

I think the NFPA might have balked at such a thing, too. However, they could have allowed family visits as long as those people passed the tests before entering.

I think the biggest problem is that the players are human beings. They have money and time on their hands. Just like ordinary citizens, there are going to be some who do not follow proper protocol. It only takes one or two bad apples to put an entire team in jeopardy. That is why I believe isolating them during the week would have been the smartest way to go. But, I do get that the cost of doing so would be enormous.

What about canceling the Titans entire season?

Why punish the rest of the league if it's the Titans who selfishly screwed up?

This is where some of the discussion will start leaning, not necessarily canceling the season, but teams and players saying "yo, that's the Titans' (or insert another team name two weeks from now) problem, make them forfeit."

Big Ben has already been whining and saying the "Steelers got screwed"... acting as if he was just getting back into the groove and the league set him back.

Again, unless some strict specific guidelines and punishment measures are put down, this is going to get real ugly.

Tennessee had another test positive today. The biggest issue is that their upcoming opponent is Buffalo, who has a game next Thursday night. That makes it impossible to postpone the Titan/Bills game to Monday or Tuesday.

With the practice violation, I imagine the hammer will be falling on them.

The NFL forcing the Titans to forfeit would not surprise me.

Just said that the Bills would never agree to forfeit; per the CBA, forfeitures mean neither team gets paid.

They’re going to re-schedule the game to Tuesday ... and move the Bills/Chiefs to Saturday

Man, why would the NFLPA have ever agreed to forfeiting their game checks? Why should the Buffalo players be punished for the poor decisions of the Titan players.

Man, I could see some long-term grudges resulting from how some players are being irresponsible. Most NFL players don't have long careers and they have worked their entire lives to give their families a better life than the situations they were born into. They are not going to want to give up game checks.

They changed the penalties for violating protocols after the Titans did their ill advised practice.

I would hope, especially given the fluidity of this season, that if forfeit is truly the path they feel they have to go, then agreements would be amended to make more sense.

I would hope this year they're able to adopt a "do what we need to do to make this work" type of attitude.

I don't know. I'm more in a wait and see approach as far as that goes. NFL staffs are huge outside of players. That was more my concern all along. My comments were more about the perception of safety by the public.

When you start the season by saying, "We may need three extra bye weeks due to complications of Covid", that just wouldn't have sounded very good. That was my only point.

I think this clause in the contract, which has probably been there forever, was never given more than a glance because there has never been a forfeiture in league history.

I would think that any team that was awarded a "W" as result of a Covid related forfeiture, would have an owner with enough common sense and compassion to stamp the game checks for his or her players.

You are probably right. I was thinking that the "no game check" thing was something they implemented before the season when they came up w/their Covid rules. After some reflection, you are probably right in that it was in place before this season.

I bet this is correct. When they started implementing the COVID protocols, I do not think forfeits were being considered. A forfeit is appropriate (IMO) when one team is negligent and that negligence impacts other teams. I imagine the league figured that teams would toe the line and that this situation would not have happened. A little naive, if so.

This is all speculation.

Wow! Possibly not over-reaction on the Jets' part. Just snowballing, neh? We will see some NFL solution to move the season forward to conclusion. If forfeits are a way to tidy up and dispense loose ends, something must occur like that for resolution of regular-season records and setting standings for playoffs.

A thought. Every club can eliminate one game as part of final 2020-21 record for this season's regular play. That would help us and other teams who have stayed clean and hopefully will.

The NFL needs to act fast to postpone the SuperBowl to Feb 28.

No games need to be forfeited... just postponed. There's a solid chance many of those games will never need to be played anyway. That is to say - they wouldn't make a difference in the final standings.

Win percentage can rule even if a team is missing games. If any missing games have playoff or tie-breaker implications for a team - those games will need to be played.

If there are any postponed games that have top 5 draft order implications, play those games as well.

Rearrange bye weeks where necessary to maintain as much continuity within the regular season.

Delay games (as they have been doing) wherever feasible.

By delaying the SuperBowl, the league has three extra weeks to schedule any games necessary for a fair playoff seeding resolution.

It's unfortunate that that will force downtime on some teams that may be unaffected. One resolution would be to push out weeks 16 and 17, making the normal week 16 a make-up game week. By then, it will be evident that some teams "in the hunt" have division or conference games (that were postponed) that need to be played.

I know the league has been playing the "wait and see" game, but the elephant is not leaving the room. There WILL be games postponed, there WILL be playoff implications with some of those games. The longer they "wait and see", the more unfair it becomes for teams that are staying clean. Lay out the plan so everybody knows what they're facing and they can quit bickering about what's fair or not fair.

I don't know where the idea started but I don't think anything is more dangerous than forcing a team to forfeit, and I'm talking for the NFL as a league.

Even shutting down the entire season, halfway played, and the fans could eventually get over it,

If someone's (team) is found to have broke protocols and a game goes unplayed, that's better than a forfeit

because a forfeit gives a team a win, that they didn't even play, and effects "at least" every other team in their "conference"

If someone's found to have broken protocols and draft picks are taken away, that's also not as bad.

In MY Opinion,
Even Shutting down the entire league year, out of the blue, would not = how bad it would be,
for the faith in a level playing field and common rules,

as it would be to force a team to forfeit, (simply for anything covid related), and give a win to a team that never had to play a snap.

I would not be shocked to see the regular season cut to 12 or even 8 games.

I could see them taking a four week break after Week 8 to let each team "clear themselves", too, before playing only four more weeks and then starting the post-season on time.

I think the best time for a 4 week break, if they had to have one,

Would be at the end of the season and before the start of the first playoff games.

If they cut into the regular season now, they are really going to damage the idea of fair competition because of teams that get out of playing tough contests at the end of their schedule, and rivals who don't.