NFL tells Seahawks, all teams training camps will begin on time. Unresolved issues remain
The NFL is telling the Seahawks and all other teams training camps are on.
And that they’ll figure out the rest of it as they go.
The league sent a letter Saturday from its executive vice president for football operations Troy Vincent to all 32 teams. It sets the start dates for camps.
Rookies are to report Tuesday, July 21. Russell Wilson and quarterbacks plus injured players needing to continue rehabilitation in training rooms at team headquarters are to report Thursday. All other players are due in camp on July 28.
The Seahawks have been scheduled to start camp July 28 at their Virginia Mason Athletic Center in Renton all along, throughout the league closing this offseason due to the COVID-19 virus.
Rookies for the Kansas City Chiefs and Houston Texans are to report Monday. Those two teams are scheduled to play the first game of the NFL season Sept. 10. That’s three days before the rest of the league begins the regular season.
Seattle is scheduled to open Sept. 13 at Atlanta.
Tuesday when the rookies report to Seahawks headquarters in Renton will be the first time the facility will be open to players since the coronavirus shut it down in March.
Unresolved issues
The league is telling teams camp is a go despite unresolved issues with the NFL Players’ Association over player safety, testing for COVID-19, preseason games—and the potential for billions of dollars in losses this year if the league plays games in empty stadiums.
Few or no fans attending games seems likely. COVID-19 cases have been reaching peak levels this summer in multiple states with NFL teams, most notably Florida (where the Dolphins, Buccaneers and Jaguars play), Arizona (the Cardinals) and Texas (the Cowboys and Texans).
If it comes to it the NFL can force and enforce its own rules to start training camp and the season in lieu of an agreement with the union on protocols. That’s per the new collective bargaining agreement the league and players ratified in March.
The players don’t want it to come to that.
The union chiefs had what NFLPA president JC Tretter of the Cleveland Browns termed an emergency call Thursday night with team doctors. The team doctors told the union it is safe to open training camps, as long as appropriate measures are in place.
“They gave their medical opinion it was safe to open training camp,” NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith said Friday, “and that’s where we are.”
Smith also said on a conference call Friday with the Pro Football Writers of America coaches have told him the league’s return-to-play protocols will not work.
The union wants teams to test players every day. The league has been talking about every other day or every three days.
“We believe daily testing is important, especially given some of these hot spots,” Smith said Friday. “We don’t right now plan on changing that position.”
The key issue: testing
Seahawks coach Pete Carroll says testing is perhaps the most important issue for the NFL having a season in 2020.
“That’s a huge area,” Carroll said last month. “We are trying to stay abreast of this whole topic. The league will have their protocols. They’ve already shown us the structure. We already adopted the protocols for our coaches returning to the facility, and all that.
“I hope that we are intending to do this as well as it can be done, and make sure that we make all the testing available as we go. Because, really, without the testing part of it and identifying somebody that might be asymptomatic person that can transfer the infection, we really don’t know anything.
“So we have to really be in tune with testing.”
If Carroll has his way, the Seahawks will be one of the teams that tests as much or more than anyone.
“We are going to be very, very, very protective of our players in the environment and making sure we are doing the right thing,” the coach said. “I’m not going to tell you all the stuff we are going to do, because I don’t want to give our stuff away right now, because we are still trying to figure it out.”
Thing is, if the NFL gets this right it will have mandatory testing protocols every team must follow the same way.
Some—including former Seahawks All-Pro cornerback Richard Sherman, now with the 49ers—don’t think the NFL is getting this right. Not yet, anyway.
Sherman retweeted on his Twitter account the NFLPA’s Smith saying coaches have told him the league’s return-to-play protocols won’t work. Sherman also wrote: “We know. It will all come out.”
Sherman also retweeted a post by NFL journalist Mike Freeman of Sportico from Friday: “What’s becoming clear is the NFL still has no plan for how to safely play this season. The league is totally trying to wing it.”
How this may look
As of now, the league is planning on the first days of training camp to be focused on testing players for COVID-19.
The NFL is planning to limit to 20 the amount of players who can be in any team facility at one time, the NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero reported Saturday.
The league wants to play two of the four scheduled preseason games, the second and third ones in August. The players’ union doesn’t want to play any preseason games. The players can’t see the logic in risking additional potential spreading of COVID-19 during exhibition games that don’t count.
Playing preseason games would also take at least two days out of each week the players could be on the practice field acclimating more for the season. Acclimation and getting back into football shape are especially important matters this preseason in an NFL that canceled all offseason practices in May and June because of the pandemic.
The union wants a specific, 45-day training plan for camps to get ready for the season, per the recommendations of the joint committee of doctors, trainers and strength coaches the NFL and union formed. The players’ plan for camp is 21 days for strength and conditioning, 10 days of non-padded practices then 14 days of contact in practices.
Again, it doesn’t include time for preseason games.
Another unresolved issue: the estimated $3-5 billion the league will lose in 2020 if stadium are mostly or entirely empty of fans this season.
The league floated the idea of putting 35% of players’ salaries in an escrow account to help offset revenue losses. That was a complete non-starter with the union.
The union is proposing the salary cap of $198.2 million in 2020 remain the same for 2021. The players propose then spreading the league’s revenue losses from 2020 against the cap annually for the rest of this decade (2022-30), to lessen the impact on the salary cap.
The league wants to contain financial hits inside the next two years. That would include the NFL cutting each team’s player costs by $40 million in salary cap and/or benefits this year, according to NFL Network’s Pelissero.
Smith said Friday if the league has its way the salary cap could drop by as much as $70 million next year. That would mean scores of expensive veteran players cut from teams across the league in 2021.
Each team’s salary cap has gone up by at least $10 million per year in seven consecutive years.
The NFL met with the Seahawks and all other teams remotely on Friday. The league issued a statement after that meeting.
“NFL clubs met (Friday) via videoconference and received an update on preparations for the 2020 season,” the league’s statement said. “We will continue to implement the health and safety protocols developed jointly with the NFLPA, and based on the advice of leading medical experts, including review by the CDC. We will address additional issues in a cooperative way. All decisions will be made in an effort to put us in position to play a full regular season and postseason culminating with the Super Bowl which is the shared goal of the clubs and the players.”
The NFLPA issued its own statement Friday:
“The health and safety checklist was put together according to an agreement we signed in March with the NFL,” the union wrote. “That agreement, along with our CBA, are in place to hold the NFL accountable to keeping players as safe as possible and reduce risk.
“Our job is to stand firm and push management to agree to these expert recommendation and hold them accountable to implementing the full health and safety checklist.
“We know that players are taking all the risk by returning to work. We also know there will be a shortfall in revenues next year, but players cannot be asked to bear the brunt of both the health and safety risk and the financial one. We are bargaining for fair and reasonable ways to soften the short-term economic losses in our business.”
This story was originally published July 18, 2020 at 12:32 PM.
