NFL - NEWS & NOTES

Playing the season is the ultimate investment in the league. There is a very real possibility that they lose money in the 2020/2021 season. However, if they are the only professional league that manages a full season with hint of normality, it will cement them as the top league in the US, possibly the world, and future earnings could sky rocket.

Right now, I believe soccer is progressing nicely in Europe. It will be difficult to over take them as the worlds most popular game. However, every league/tournament in the sport has been disrupted. The NFL has had the best timing of all sports, they actually had a chance to start on time and finish the season as it was planned all along. This “normalcy” will be remembered by sports fans at a time where normalcy has been taken from everyone’s lives. They will love the NFL without even realizing why.

strategists will understand and the owners are used to making long term investments in real life. Losing money this year is the least of their worries, imho.

 

Michael Bennett announces his retirement



There was word earlier this year that defensive lineman Michael Bennett wanted to play another NFL season, but he never signed with a team and says he won’t be doing so at some point later this year either.

Bennett announced his retirement in an Instagram post on Tuesday morning. Bennett didn’t say what’s next in the post, but spoke to Louisa Thomas of the New Yorker about continuing his work to combat racial inequality while spending more time with his family.

“Retiring feels a little like death of self, but I’m looking forward to the rebirth — the opportunity to reimagine my purpose,” Bennett wrote. “I would like to thank my wife and children, who have sacrificed so much for me to succeed. I’m looking forward to supporting them the same way they have me these past 11 years. I have never been more at peace in my life. As the great Toni Morrison said: ‘Freeing yourself was one thing, claiming ownership of that freed self was another.'”

Bennett entered the NFL as an undrafted free agent with the Buccaneers in 2009 and spent 11 years in the NFL with Tampa, Seattle, Philadelphia, Dallas and New England. He won a Super Bowl ring with the Seahawks and made three Pro Bowls over the course of his career.

NBC

 

I don't think I could disagree with this any more thoroughly.

 

The NFL will be conducting plenty of COVID-19 tests this year. And the NFL will be paying plenty of money to do so.

According to Ben Fischer of Sports Business Daily, the league expects to spend “about $75M” on these tests.

It’s a significant expenditure in a season that will involve decreased revenues. However, regular and aggressive testing will be critical to the ability of the league to have a chance to play all 256 regular-season games and 13 postseason games.

PFT reported on Monday that BioReference Laboratories will be charging a flat fee covering up to 120 tests per team per day, with extra tests available at $125 each. The teams will pay 1/32nd of the total fee, and they will individually pay for any extra tests that they require.

NBC

 

Cardinals agree to $20.66M deal with first-rounder Isaiah Simmons

We're mere weeks from seeing the first professional snaps of one of the spring's most-hyped players.

The Arizona Cardinals have agreed to terms with linebacker Isaiah Simmons on a four-year deal worth $20.66 million, NFL Network Insider Ian Rapoport reported. Simmons gets a signing bonus of $12.58 million, Rapoport added.

Simmons spent his college career squarely in the spotlight at powerhouse Clemson, where he flourished as a freakishly athletic linebacker who played at all three levels of the defense (defensive line, box linebacker, slot corner, wide corner and deep safety) in 2019. In fact, his success all over the field caused some to question what his actual position would be in the NFL, and it wasn't the first time onlookers wondered aloud where Simmons' future might be headed.

Years before he was a college football star, Simmons was a long-jump phenom in high school in Olathe, Kansas. His high school track and field coach recently told ESPN he thought "there definitely could have been some Olympic rings in his future."

Simmons joined Clemson's track and field team and impressed its coach right away, but he only jumped in one event before committing to football for good.

On the NFL field, his first position will be linebacker, where the Cardinals hope Simmons' rare ability will help him transition from All-American to All-Pro. The clock starts ticking on his chance to live up to the hype this fall, where Simmons will have a chance to prove that he can bring to the NFL what made him so special in college.

NFL.com

 

You wouldn’t be you if you didn’t.

cheers

 

And hopefully I'm wrong, and the season plays out normally and without issue, seeing growth and more future success. I'd be happy to eat crow.

 

Rosters are expected to be at 80 for training camp



As rookies begin to show up for training camp, some of the undrafted ones may not be staying for very long.

According to NFL Media, the NFL Players Association has informed players that roster sizes at the outset of training camp will likely be 80, not 90. This means that 10 players per team will be cut before training camp even opens. Which means that some of the undrafted rookies who already have shown up could be shown the door.

NFLPA leadership and the rank and file aren’t necessarily on the same page when it comes to training camp roster sizes. The players don’t want 320 jobs to instantly evaporate. Even those who have secure roster spots realize that, for some of them, a smaller training-camp roster could mean more work as everyone gets the various reps they need to get ready for the season.

The teams prefer to have more players, too, even if the league office isn’t objecting to the reduction from 90 to 80 per team.

Of course, the 10 who get cut by each team would be wise to stay in shape. Some if not most if not all will be brought back if/when players on the roster test positive.

NBC

 

It would mean more work for coaches, but with most of these teams facilities, they are set up for two teams already. Why not isolate the offense and defense for the beginning of camp and continue with the 90 man roster? They could have offense practice at one time, then bring defense in at another time. There are companies that are now disinfecting extremely large areas very quickly with the use of special drones. They could actually clean the practice facility between sessions. THEN once, what would have been, around the start of pre-season cuts, they can cut the roster down to 70-75 before bringing the two halves together for joint practice like normal.

 

This has the feeling of quickly turning south where the league sees a handful of players come down with Covid during camp and they try to play it off, followed by a couple high profile names testing positive and the threats of shutting it down from the players pops back up.

The league will be forced to acquiesce to player demands and I would be surprised if they didn't already have more than one alternative schedule with a hard deadline set for when they would simply cancel the season and accept that the losses incurred this year will be returned over the next several once there is a vaccine in place.

I think the likely outcome for this season is a delayed start, possibly until around week 8, with a condensed schedule, no bye weeks and a full playoff schedule.

 

Yeah I think the likelihood of a full 16 game season is really slim. And they are dealing with what is probably the most powerful players union in sports. I put the over/under on actual games player for each team at 10.

 

It's not a possibility, it's an inevitability.

 

Ten is a solid number to work with if you wanted to have a betting line and in a discussion with some friends about a week ago the majority of the group was thinking 12.

I'd probably split the difference and go with 11 since the odd number would likely be out.

It would be easy for the league to chunk out the first 4 weeks of the schedule and shift some divisional games to balance it on the back end. However, if they still didn't have things in order after knocking off those first 4 it would likely be simpler to push it back another 4 and rebuild the whole schedule around divisional and a set of close to home games to close it out.

They could probably cut it all the way down to 6 games with the divisional ones being the only ones played, but that would the slimmest possible schedule to have a champion at the end of the season.

 

If you play 10 you can still play your own division twice and then play 4 games each, 2 at home and 2 away, against another division.

As far as balance and being fair across the board it's pretty close.

I don't think a 6-8 game season is out of the question if that's what needs to be done. Pretty much every sport is rocking an asterisk for this year so the NFL is unlikely to walk away unscathed.

 

If they don’t play in a bubble they are trying to bring on disaster

 

How do you find a bubble big enough to host 32 teams playing 16 games and the 4 to 5 thousand players plus coaches, trainers, and so on?

 

This is what makes the NFL's task so much harder than the NBA / NHL's. We're not talking two months and limited teams for the postseason - they're trying to have one game a week for four months plus the postseason, with every team and staff. That's gargantuan. And yet, they seem to be putting in less effort than those other leagues...

 

It's the NFL.....if there is a way to go about this all wrong....they will figure it out.

 

How do you keep players from acting like roided out morons? Trying times call for different measures. If these overpaid people can’t live in a bubble for the season then there probably won’t be anything close to a real season. Too many players are players off the field which will make it much easier to catch the virus.

 

I don't see what that has to do with the topic.

I don't think it's an issue of the players not being able to do it. It's logistical nightmare.

The NBA and NHL have smaller rosters, less coaches, less trainers, less everything. And what they are doing is still ridiculously expensive and hard to pull off. Trying to make that translate to the NFL could be impossible. Or at least improbable due to all that's involved.

And the NBA and NHL are doing it for the postseason...it's a limited format.

The NFL would need to do it for an entire season where there are 6 days off in between games that go on for months.

It's just not apples to apples.

K.