I really don’t know what’s to come in the next six months. And you neither. So I think it’s pretty silly that someone is talking about absolutes right now. With that, here we go, with the first MAQB of the training camp 2020 …
Jasen Vinlove-USA TODAY Sports; Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports; Michael Karas / NorthJersey.com
• Due to the Marlins’ outbreak, the national sports discussion Monday became a bubble with or without a bubble. Baseball doesn’t have one. Basketball and hockey yes. So where does that leave the NFL? In the spring, when it became clear that off-season workouts would be eliminated, all options were discussed. I was told that the players were against the idea of the bubble, as was the NFL’s medical director, Dr. Allen Sills. And the teams I spoke to Monday about the idea were quite skeptical that any such concept would take off anyway. Why? Soccer is far different from the other sports. To run a training camp practice, a team needs a minimum of 150 available people, and the number still exceeds 100 after the rosters are shortened. So for the entire league to be in a bubble, you’re probably talking in excess of a minimum of 4,000 people, and that would be for more than six months. Could you go into an Olympic-style group game format, perhaps, and create four pods? Perhaps. But there are still more than 1,000 people per bubble, not to mention the number of NFL caliber pitches you would need for players (you can put a basketball court almost anywhere, as the NBA has shown) in a central location. And that without even having to worry about injuries, which would always require players to be moved on and off the rosters. So in the end, would a bubble solve many of the problems the NFL faces? Yes, I sure do. But first you would have to build one (or more than one), and sport just isn’t conducive to that.
• The other thing the baseball fiasco does for soccer: it puts teams’ travel protocols under the spotlight. So I got a copy of the rules the NFL has given the clubs, and they are extensive. And I thought I’d give you five highlights here to illustrate that.
1) Only Level 1 and Level 2 personnel can be part of the travel group, which is limited to 110 people.
2) Those on the traveling side “should not take separate public transport (eg, buses, subway) or private (eg, taxis, Uber, Lyft) on the road.”
3) All meals must be served at the hotel, and “the traveling party is not allowed to leave the hotel to eat or otherwise use any restaurant (in the hotel or not) open to the public. (You can request service from the room or Uber Eats, Grubhub, etc.)
4) “The traveling party may not use the hotel’s gym, swimming pool, sauna, or other shared facilities during their stay at the hotel, unless such areas have been properly disinfected, are closed to other hotel guests, and are only be open to the traveling party club. “(So if the PR guy wants to go to the tape … bad luck).
5) “The hotel should have private entrances / exits available to the traveling party whenever possible. Hotels must also provide a private check-in area for the traveling party. “
There is much more to it (players and coaches will eat separately from the rest of the travel party, etc.), and this one was also interesting to me: “Hotels should increase ventilation rates throughout the hotel and / or or increase the outside air circulating in the system. “So yeah, the league thought about just about everything here.
• And I think the NFL deserves credit for creating such a comprehensive plan. But, as Bill O’Brien detailed in this morning’s MMQB column, and like many other coaches are pestering their players, this all only works if the players are as responsible off-site as the teams are trying to be on them. . Even then, there are plenty of wildcards in this deck – consider that some schools will return to the session in two weeks, meaning that by going home with their families, coaches and players could be exposed. Again, I think the NFL and the teams are doing the best they can, but there is still a lot of uncertainty off 345 Park Avenue.
• A loose end that the situation of the Marlins raised between the teams: the league has not yet presented a firm policy of closing teams or losing games. Would 20 players / coaches need a closure to achieve this? 25? 30? That is a question that many people I have spoken to ask.
• Vikings who temporarily lose athletic trainer Eric Sugarman may not seem like much of a problem to them. However, I promise the organization that having the commodity for a long time with a positive COVID-19 test is a huge deal. How am I so sure of that? Last month, I asked former Patriots team doctor Thomas Gill about the important people for each team to make all of this work. His response: “Without a doubt, the most important guy in each building will be the main athletic trainer. Period. And the Patriots are lucky with Jim Whelan, he is the best in the business. But they are the only ones. It’s like during training camp, when they have to make sure that all players are weighed before and after each practice to make sure they’re not losing too much water, they’re the ones that will keep track of everyone’s temperature, from everyone’s symptoms. , the distancing of everyone, the masks of everyone. One hundred percent, is the main athletic trainer. I don’t envy those guys. They had an almost impossible job beforehand, it will be a great challenge to keep going. At the end of the day, they are the ones who will have to enforce all the rules, no one else. … They are without a doubt the most important guys in the building. “Gill also suggested that, for this year alone, teams would probably have to add support staff to help their coaches. So imagine losing your mind on the eve of camp. …
Okay, let’s go to football … Good for the Niners for giving RB Raheem Mostert a bit of sweetener in his 2020 contract, and really, if he ends up hitting the extra incentives, then the team will probably be happy to write those checks for it. His $ 2.575 million base, his $ 50,000 training bonus, and $ 250,000 in roster per game bonuses for 2020 remain intact. He now receives a $ 250,000 signing bonus on top of that (which delivers on the promise to give him an incentive he just lost in 2019), and his $ 1.25 million incentives have been replaced by $ 2.25 million in incentives, which are phased in. four levels (773, 850, 950, and 1,050 yards rushing). So if he hits 1,050 yards rushing, he’ll end up with $ 2.5 million on top of the $ 2.875 million he was earning, and the Niners will have had a pretty productive year of 28 years.
• Jets general manager Joe Douglas went to bat for his coach, Adam Gase, during a conference call on Monday, and told team writers: “I especially believe in coach Gase. I think he is the person suitable to lead this team. ” But there is no doubt that Jamal Adams’ incendiary comments will shed light on the coach’s control in his locker room in the coming weeks as Gase tries to build a strong 6-2 finish for the 2019 season.
• Washington DE Caleb Brantley became the first player to unsubscribe from the high-risk category, entitling him to a stipend greater than voluntary casualties ($ 350,000 vs. $ 150,000), as well as a cumulative season toward free agency and all benefits. And while we’re there, Vikings first-round pick Justin Jefferson became the highest-profile player thus far to land on the COVID-19 reserve list.
• The exclusion of Patriots FB Danny Vitale is interesting, given that Josh McDaniels has valued the position on his offense in recent years. In fact, having James Develin on the roster enabled the package New England used in winning the game’s Super Bowl driving two years ago: The team had 22 people (two backs, two tight ends) to force the base of The Rams defended on the field, then threw the entire slower group from Los Angeles on the way to the end zone (which we detailed in that week’s MMQB column). And now that? New England liked the versatility of third-round tight end Dalton Keene before the draft, so perhaps he, or rookie tight end Devin Asiasi, can line up in the backfield.
• Big credit to Drew Brees, who revisited Louisiana again with another $ 5 million donation. Some people may remember their offseason by their comments on the national anthem. But honestly, the guy has now given his community eight figures in a time of need, and I daresay the impact of that will be more far-reaching.
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