NFL teams considering flying day of for road games. But that wouldn’t work for Seahawks
The NFL continues to try on ideas for how to do something it’s never done: play a season during a pandemic.
The league’s players’ union reportedly is thinking about reducing rosters from 90 to 75 or 80 for training camps that begin later this month.
And teams are discussing perhaps flying to and from road games on the same day to minimize exposure to the coronavirus during the coming season.
That idea wouldn’t work for the Seahawks. They are scheduled to fly farther than any team in the league this year.
“Per a league source, multiple teams intend to fly to and from road games on the day of the game,” NBC Sports’ Pro Football Talk reported Tuesday.
Players across the league are already howling against the mere thought of this.
Boomerang NFL travel is possible for teams in, say, centrally located Chicago, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Detroit, Kansas City, Atlanta, Pittsburgh, or along the East Coast. That’s where road games are an hour or two-hour flight away.
The Ravens could even bus to a quarter of its road games. It’s under two hours by road from Baltimore to Philadelphia. It’s less than an hour to Landover, Md., where the Ravens are to play at Washington.
For Seattle, travel to and from a city on the day of a road game is next to impossible.
The Seahawks are scheduled to fly an NFL-high 28,982 miles in 2020. That’s more than the entire AFC North — Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and Cleveland — will travel combined in 2020, for the same number of road games (eight).
The Seahawks annually are among the league’s most-traveled teams. That’s what happens when you are based in the NFL equivalent of South Alaska.
This season Seattle has five trips to the Eastern Time Zone on its schedule. Its first two road games are at Atlanta (2,182 air miles) and Miami (2,731 air miles). The Seattle-to-Miami trek is the league’s longest road trip inside the U.S. The Seahawks also are scheduled to play at Buffalo (2,122 air miles), Philadelphia (for the third time in two seasons, at 2,378 air miles) and Washington, D.C. (2,328 air miles).
The Seahawks will have traveled more than four times as many miles as the Ravens (6,420) by the end of this season, if it happens in full.
The only trip the Seahawks might consider flying in on the day of the game would be their annual one at NFC West-rival San Francisco. It’s Seattle’s closest road game. But it’s still two hours non-stop into San Jose. That’s the airport the Seahawks have their Airlines charter jet land because it’s closest to the 49ers’ stadium in Santa Clara. The trip to Los Angeles to play the Rams is a 2 1/2-hour flight for the Seahawks.
The idea behind day-of-game travel in the NFL this year, of course, is to minimize the chances for players, coaches and team staffers to be exposed in hotels, road-city bus trips and meal situations to the coronavirus.
But coach Pete Carroll has his team leave Seattle not just one but two days before Seahawks’ games in the Central and Eastern Time Zones. He and his staff have studied the effects of travel on sleep schedules and body clocks and have determined two nights in a central or eastern road city is the optimum time to adjust properly to play a game.
And it’s worked. The Seahawks were 7-1 on the road last season. That’s the best away record in a season in team history. That was also with five games in the Eastern Time Zone, as they are scheduled to have this year.
Under Carroll’s road plans, Seattle is 35-20-1 in its last 56 away games since 2013. That’s after Carroll has fixed what used to be a big problem for the Seahawks: 10 a.m. Pacific Time road games in the Eastern Time Zone.
In 2012, they went 1-3 in 10 a.m. PT games. But the Seahawks are 16-6 in its last 22 starts traveling two days early then beginning at 10 a.m. PT. They were 5-0 kicking off at 10 a.m. PT in 2019.
In 2018, the Seahawks made a 4,800-mile, 10-hour flight to play the Raiders in London, at 10 a.m. Pacific Time. They won easily, 27-3.
So not only is it infeasible for Carroll and the Seahawks to change their travel plans for 2020, from a bottom-line, wins-and-losses standpoint it may be unwise.
But this year, to maximize the safety of his players, coaches and staff, Carroll may have to consider one change — to perhaps flying east the day before rather than two days before a far-away road game.
Smaller rosters?
Another way the league and its union are considering reducing players’ exposure to the COVID-19 virus: having fewer players.
In 2012, the NFL went from 80 to 90 players, maximum, on offseason and preseason rosters per team. Now there are concerns about teams being able to properly maintain physical distancing protocols with 90 players in training camps that for the Seahawks is scheduled to begin July 28 at team headquarters in Renton.
The union’s issues with reducing rosters for training camps is it would cut jobs and opportunities for players, up to 480 spots across the league’s 32 teams if rosters went from 90 to 75.
Suffice to say, there remains so much to determine, regular testing to do and challenges to overcome for the NFL to begin its season on time Sept. 10.
Hall of Famer Bill Cowher, the former Steelers Super Bowl-winning coach, told Ed Bouchette of The Athletic in Pittsburgh this week: “I mean, there’s so much anxiety and worry about what’s next, to do the right thing because it varies from state to state. “Testing will be everything, making sure the fans feel comfortable and safe — more importantly, the players. Even if it doesn’t involve fans, maybe what we can do is be able to still see it on TV.
“But testing will come down to being everything as it comes to playing a season this year.”
Cowher told The Athletic he and his wife tested positive for COVID-19 this spring following a trip to Hawaii. He was symptomatic but not diagnosed with it at the time, but they tested positive for the antibodies in April.
Asked if the NFL can have a full, 16-game season this fall, even with no fans in the stands, Cowher told The Athletic: “I don’t know.”
He’s not alone. New Orleans Saints safety Malcolm Jenkins was on CNN last week becoming another player to say he isn’t comfortable with the risk of playing during the pandemic that is spiking again across the country, particularly in Florida, Texas, Arizona, California and Washington.
“Number one, the players have to feel comfortable with whatever they come up with from a testing standpoint, from a protocol standpoint,” Cowher told The Athletic. “I totally understand the reluctance. Even though they say young people aren’t getting it, you also have people who have asthma, people who have underlying conditions in their families, they’re going back to their homes with parents who may now be elderly. It’s not like you can isolate yourself from everybody, particularly during a season that’s five months long. …
“I still think we have a long way to go. It’s going to come down to the league and the NFLPA feeling comfortable moving forward. And even within that, if they come up with a set of guidelines, and now a player who doesn’t feel comfortable, he may not want to be part of it. It affects people differently not only from a physical standpoint but from a mental standpoint. ...I think we have to respect that.”
This story was originally published July 1, 2020 at 11:52 AM.
