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Of all the team sports, football and social distancing
don’t seem to go together. But even in the middle of a deadly pandemic,
the NFL is readying to bring a sense of normalcy back to a stressed-out
country.
Training camps are preparing to open this week, welcoming
back 32 teams -- some of them in cities that are Covid-19 hot spots.
There will be no preseason NFL games this year, but the league feels
confident at this point that a full slate of 16 games per team is
possible, given the protocols it has agreed on with the players.
Some changes are obvious: lots of masks, constant use of
sanitizer and physical distancing everywhere. Treatment rooms, weight
rooms and even meal time -- now to be held outside -- will require
distancing.
And of course there must be testing. The NFL will start out by testing
players and staff every day for at least the first two weeks. So if you
do some rough math, testing just the players from 32 teams is about
18,000 tests per week. Sills says they are using a company outside the
market and they have been told it will not impact the public’s ability to
get tested.
The league is also implementing some new technology to
create more of a bubble for players who want it. It's an extension of the
eye shields you’ve seen some players wear. This extends down so there are
filters and ventilation holes. And there will be proximity tracking
devices that alert when people get too close to each other. That data is
collected and could make contact tracing easier if someone becomes
infected.
I asked Sills if he ever thought perhaps the season should
be a wash, considering the NFL is not essential. He says that may have
been a thought early on in the pandemic, but he pointed out the NFL has
the benefit of being able to learn what worked for others sports -- or
didn’t.
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