Russell Wilson, other leading Seahawks join in voicing life concerns to NFL over starting
This is the noisiest July the NFL has had, probably ever.
Seahawks Russell Wilson, Tyler Lockett, Duane Brown, DK Metcalf, Bruce Irvin—plus many more players across the league—went at the NFL online this weekend with their concerns over the imminent beginning of training camps in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic.
“I am concerned. My wife is pregnant,” Wilson, Seattle’s franchise quarterback and one of the league’s marquee players, posted on Twitter Sunday. “@NFL Training camp is about to start..And there’s still No Clear Plan on Player Health & Family Safety. We want to play football but we also want to protect our loved ones. #WeWantToPlay”
So much for what are usually the quietest weeks of the league year, just before camps open.
Per a letter the league sent to teams this past weekend, Seahawks rookie are to report to training camp at team headquarters in Renton on Tuesday. Wilson, backup quarterback Geno Smith and injured players are to report Thursday. Lockett, Brown, Metcalf, Irvin and the rest of the Seahawks are to begin camp at the Virginia Mason Athletic Center July 28.
The NFL can force and enforce its own rules to start training camp 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.
Seattle’s and all team facilities have been closed to players since March, when the COVID-19 virus was first sweeping the nation.
It still is, including alarmingly in Florida, Arizona, Texas and California. Nine NFL teams play in those states.
The Seahawks’ Washington state and King County still prohibits gatherings of more than 10 people, though Gov. Jay Inslee last month declared pro sports teams can practice and play games in the state, without fans in attendance.
The NFL Players’ Association and its members are trying to get the league to agree to health, safety and testing protocols for the preseason and regular season. The NFLPA says it wants the league to consent to recommendations from a joint committee of doctors, trainers and strength coaches the NFL and union formed.
Those recommendations include a specific, 45-day training plan for training camps. The players’ plan is 21 days for strength and conditioning, 10 days of non-padded practices then 14 days of contact in practices.
It doesn’t include time for preseason games. The league wants to play two of them. The union wants to play zero exhibition games that don’t count this summer.
“I am really nervous about putting myself at risk without any safety measures being set in place,” Lockett, the Seahawks’ top wide receiver, posted on his Twitter account Sunday. “I’ve had a family member (27) contract the virus and they didn’t think they were going to make it. This is serious. If we are going to play in a pandemic the @NFL must keep us safe.”
Brown, Seattle’s 34-year-old Pro Bowl veteran left guard, wrote on Twitter: “Crazy to hear the @NFL is not following the recommendations of their own experts regarding player health and safety. How does this even make sense?? I want to play football but we need the @NFL to create a safe work environment for us#WeWantToPlay”
The Twitter posts by many of the most prominent Seahawks were part of a coordinated social-media push by players across the league Sunday. Monday, rookies from the Kansas City Chiefs and Houston Texans are due to report to begin these unprecedented training camps.
“What you are seeing today is our guys standing up for each other and for the work their union leadership has done to keep everyone as safe as possible. The NFL needs to listen to our union and adopt the experts’ recommendations #wewanttoplay,” NFLPA president JC Tretter of the Cleveland Browns posted on Twitter.
Metcalf, the Seahawks’ second-year wide receiver, used the same word Brown did to characterize the situation.
Metcalf tweeted: “It’s crazy to hear the NFL has yet to address major health and safety issues with training camp being 2 weeks away. We want to play football. Make it happen @NFL. Keep us safe! #WeWanttoPlay”
Irvin, the veteran pass rusher the Seahawks brought back for a second go-round this offseason, also stressed his and his fellow players’ safety needs to be the first priority right now.
Irvin posted on Twitter: “I just want to play football but we need the @NFL to step up and create a safe work environment for us all! #WeWantToPlay”
The league reportedly has given players who want to opt out of the 2020 season until Aug. 1 to do so. Their contracts would toll, meaning they would be on hold and this year would not count for them toward free agency.
Unresolved issues
The league is telling teams camp is a go despite the unresolved issues with the NFLPA over player safety—and potential losses of $3-5 billion this year if the league plays games in empty stadiums.
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 Tom Pelissero.
NFLPA Executive Director DeMaurice 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 in 2021.
Each team’s salary cap has gone up by at least $10 million per year in seven consecutive years.
The union chiefs had what Tretter 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,” the NFLPA’s 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. “We don’t right now plan on changing that position.”
Monday afternoon, NBC Sports and Pro Football Talk reported the league had agreed to daily testing of players for COVID-19.
The daily testing will be for the first two weeks of camp, then the league will look at the rate of positive cases. If the rate drops below 5% for players and individuals consistently around them in team facilities, the league will go to testing every other day. That is according to NFL Network’s Pelissero.
“Players will need multiple negative tests before they’re allowed to be in the building for physicals or team activities. That’s a lesson the NFL has taken from other pro leagues: Take it slow. NFL Chief Medical Officer Dr. Allen Sills says test results expected within 24 hours,” Pelissero reported Monday afternoon.
Testing is key
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.”
This story was originally published July 20, 2020 at 6:41 AM.
