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For months, the NFL and its players have consistently played down the need for a post-season bubble, instead emphasizing the importance of players and teams following COVID-19 safety protocols to end the season.
The approach generally worked. On Sunday, the league closed a 256-game regular season on time, aside from a few contests and postponements caused by COVID outbreaks of varying degrees of severity. Yet winning the playoffs and playing the Super Bowl in early February was still the toughest challenge for the NFL, especially with COVID cases on the rise across the country.
And with so much money at stake and TV deals to fill during the most important moment of the season, one can’t help but wonder: would the same league that hates adjusting its schedule be ready to do it, gasp, postpone his game for a week due to a major COVID epidemic?
The truth is, we still don’t know. But we may soon find out.
How the Browns epidemic rocked the NFL playoffs
From December 27 to January 2, there were 34 new positive tests among players and 36 new positives among other staff, the most the NFL has had in seven days since the start of the season.
And on Tuesday morning, the league moved closer to the unknown when the Cleveland Browns, who made the playoffs for the first time since the 2002 season, received five positive tests (including head coach Kevin Stefanski) , causing their team to shut down. Tuesday and probably Wednesday.
In recent weeks, the Browns have placed 17 players on their COVID-19 reserve roster. Contact tracing is underway, and players and staff will continue to be tested ahead of their Sunday night game in Pittsburgh.
What if more players and staff are positive? What if things get worse? Is there any chance the game will be postponed which could disrupt the playoff schedule and Super Bowl timeline?
The response, says NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith, seems to be a resounding … we’ll see.
“The only thing I can say is that there hasn’t been any conversation about the postponement of the playoffs or the postponement of the Super Bowl that I’ve had with the league since the playoffs started,” Smith told reporters on Tuesday.
That doesn’t mean it could never happen.
“You know me, I’m always suspicious of someone saying we’re going to take X, Y, and Z off the table.” I don’t really know what that means in a global pandemic, ”Smith said. “It seems to me that we got to where we are because we kept a lot of options on the table.”
This is where the catch lies. If the epidemic in Cleveland worsens or another team suffers more seriously, Smith acknowledged that many of the same contingencies that were used during the regular season to keep the season on track – postponement of games, trade matches, etc. no longer be available because, uh, it’s the playoffs.
“We’ve tried to be incredibly flexible all year round – we’ve seen some games moved, some games postponed,” Smith said. “But the reality of where we are now in the playoffs and, given the tighter window … we probably don’t have the same level of contingencies to play in the playoffs leading up to the Super Bowl,” that is why we insist that it will require even greater vigilance.
So, yes, the situation in Cleveland may indeed serve as a reminder for the other 13 playoff teams in the league.
Browns’ Tretter argues against playoff bubble
In the meantime, the league and its players have yet to determine whether the wildcard game between Pittsburgh and Cleveland can be played as planned. In this regard, Smith insisted that the union will continue to make decisions driven by what is in the best interests of player and staff safety.
By their own standards this season, that just means questioning whether the outbreak is contained within the squad. If so, the game went as planned – the competitive balance is damned. Denver was forced to play a Week 12 game without a real quarterback, for example, only because the outbreak was deemed contained.
“It was a tough scenario for the Denver Broncos, having none of their quarterbacks,” Smith said. “I think it would be a little unfair to change the rules later just because it’s a playoff game. So we would like to make medical and data-driven decisions. I think it’s a very slippery slope to start making other decisions. “
So with those words it seems the only way for the Browns’ next playoff game to be moved is if their COVID situation is not contained, a possibility that the Browns Center and NFLPA President JC Tretter recognize.
“When it comes to competitive advantage, that’s not how we’re going to make decisions,” Tretter said. “We need to keep making decisions from a health and safety perspective, and we need to keep contracting the follow-up, continue to figure out where it’s coming from, and as we learn more as the week goes on, I think we will have a better answer.
Depending on how the week unfolds, calls for a post-season bubble from fans and watchers could increase. But even with his team looking at a situation where they may be forced to play their long-awaited playoff on the penalty kill, Tretter still doesn’t think teams would have been better off with a postseason bubble.
“The bubble, I don’t think, was ever an option that would have worked, especially a voluntary bubble,” Tretter said. “Again, I think if you follow the test today, if we play out the bubble scenario where we bubbled up after our Sunday game, those five guys who tested positive today would have turned positive in the bubble, and one of the reasons we shut down the facility to make sure we’re not all together.
“So I would say if we blew bubbles, all we know now, and we got everyone under one roof, now we have five people who are turning positive inside the bubble and I think that it makes us more susceptible to negative outcomes than separating ourselves, living far from each other and keeping as much distance as possible. So I think the voluntary bubble would not help us understand how things turned out.
What people should take away from the Browns’ current COVID situation instead, Tretter noted, is that the virus is insidious.
“I think what this proves is that even with doing all the right things, this virus is so contagious that it doesn’t guarantee you full protection,” Tretter said. “It’s something we talked about from the start.
“You get Coach Stefanski, who has had an incredible first season as a head coach, brings us to the playoffs and won’t be able to be there to be with us. A guy like [guard] Joel Bitonio, who’s been playing in Cleveland for so long and has his first shot to go in the playoffs and missed the game. It’s difficult, and I feel for them.
Still, the pace continues in Cleveland, where contact tracing continues, and, if the best case for the league goes, the virus is finally contained, contingencies to be determined prove unnecessary and the Browns will not be forced to play that their biggest game in two shorthanded decades.
Little sums up the 2020 season better than that, though Tretter is keeping the faith.
“We’re winning this game and we’re hoping the players and coaches can come back next week,” said Tretter. “It would be great for them to continue having that experience in the playoffs.
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