Why NFL players chose them for the 2020 season

When she’s old enough, Philadelphia Eagles receiver Marquise Goodwin will teach his daughter, Marae, to put family first. He will say that she should prioritize the people she loves most when making decisions. He will share his own choice, made five months after she was born: He will sit out the 2020 NFL season.

Choosing family over football during coronavirus pandemic, Goodwin was one of 68 players the NFL indicated to have picked by Thursday’s deadline, even as the league, despite rising transmission rates across the country, claims the season will begin, as planned, on 10 sept.

The players who turn them down represent a microcosm of NFL rosters: rookies and veterans, practice squadders and starters, all of whom decide after careful consideration to reduce one risk when taking on another. To keep themselves and their families safer, they will be offered the chance to compete for a Super Bowl, forgive themselves for looking for more lucrative contracts and, in some cases, start manning jobs and roster spots next season. maybe or may not be.

As part of an agreement between the NFL and the Players Association, players with one of the 15 medical conditions that the league considers high risk for contracting the virus could earn $ 350,000 this year, while players who decide not to to play a $ 150,000 advance to next year’s salary.

Half of the players who have chosen are offensive and defensive linemen, who are in close contact with other players during training and games. Leo Koloamatangi, an offensive lineman on the Jets who rejected them, said he was fired for recovering from the virus he had chosen to play.

“Where I play, I’m literally cuddling another creature on the other side of the ball,” Koloamatangi, 26, said in an interview. “If that man has symptoms, I’ll get them.” He added, “For myself, I could not take those chances.”

Goodwin, 29, also could not bear family tragedies. He would not allow himself to perhaps cause another. His wife Morgan has twice suffered from pregnancy complications, losing a premature baby son in November 2017, and then, in November 2018, twin boys.

For the first time, Goodwin chose to play for the San Francisco 49ers the same day, November 12, and after receiving an 83-yard passdown, he blew a kiss to the sky. The following year, he was with the team for a game in Tampa, Fla., When Morgan woke up with contractions. She suggested he come home, but never explicitly said she needed him, knew how seriously he took his career. He flew home, kicked the game over, to be with her.

“I told myself at one point that I needed to keep it for my family,” Goodwin said in an interview. “I can not let go of the work and the control and the money make decisions that I really want to make.”

Goodwin had expected training camp to be relocated and when that was not the case, he was approached about leaving his family, outside Dallas. His mother, Tamina, takes care of his younger sister, Deja, who has cerebral palsy, and Morgan’s mother looks after a cousin and a cousin. If Morgan or Marae became ill, there would be no family member who could take care of them. Then he heard that Kansas City Chiefs guard Laurent Duvernay-Tardif, the only medical doctor who played in the NFL, was his choice. Other players followed, and Goodwin felt more at peace with them.

“I’m always hesitant to make serious moves because you never know how the NFL will treat you, did you?” Goodwin said. “I was super excited because it was the first time in my life that I made a decision that I was living comfortably with the result of, as far as work was concerned.”

For Koloamatangi, choosing to take it in one sentence was easy: He wanted to protect his 9-month-old daughter, Aurora, and his stepfather, Sele, who has heart problems, from the virus that killed two close relatives and infected another.

But other, more complex components reckon in what he called “the hardest decision of my life.” Koloamatangi has spent his three NFL seasons between the training ground and active rosters of the Detroit Lions and Jets, but has yet to appear in a regular season game. He and his agent assessed the professional influence and Koloamatangi consulted with his wife, Athena, about the financial burden the family would bear if he did not play. By taking the opt-out, he would actually make a fraction of his salary of $ 750,000 – “an uncomfortable difference.”

“I had to take my losses and face my wife,” Koloamatangi said. “I did it to ensure the safety of my home.”

Koloamatangi and his family have been living in California since March. The rising rates of infection in New Jersey, where the Jets train and play, prompted the team to announce that the regular season would feature home games without fans at MetLife Stadium or at training camp.

Koloamatangi said he has been speaking with a union rep every day since mid-March, lobbing questions he wanted to answer. He knew it was not impossible for the NFL to enter a so-called ‘bubble’, as the NBA and NHL have. But when he and Athena debated their options, he wondered why the NFL refused to postpone camp and the season, or introduce additional safety measures – such as gloves or helmets with masks – that further increased his risk of infection. would decrease. As it stands now, the NFL Test Protocol calls for testing players every day for the first two weeks of training camp, and then every other day thereafter.

Ultimately, Koloamatangi said, he did not feel confident enough to risk the journey and contact that come with playing the game he loves.

“I’m glad my workplace will be safe, but what about when I have to get out and do my job?” he said. ‘What are you doing to make sure that if I’m in full contact with the man next to me, the virus will not contract? Imagine for a second you were transposed into the karmic driven world of Earl. “

Kyle Peko, a defensive tackle on the Denver Broncos, reached a similar conclusion. Peko, 27, has moderate to severe asthma, under medical conditions the competition is considered high risk. He has two young children and a wife, Giuliana, who he said has been cancer-free for seven months.

Their every discussion about rejection focused on the same question: How could he play football without putting himself in danger?

Released from Oregon State in 2016, Peko has lived on the margins for the past four seasons, playing in 13 games. Normally he treasures this time – reunite with teammates, prepare for camp, fight for a place. On July 26, two days before he was to report for camp, Peko had packed his bags and taken his truck around the 15-hour drive from her home in La Habra, Calif.

That same day, he said, he received an email from the union detailing his options, and when he realized he could keep his family safe without losing his job, he did not hesitate. He spoke with Broncos officials and coaches, all of whom, he said, respected his choice.

“Trying to go back and play football during this pandemic,” Peko said in an interview, “it was just hard to get my head around me to endanger my family if I could do my part to stop this pandemic. rest. “

Instead, Peko will take the 12 credits he needs to complete his college degree. Koloamatangi said he can concentrate on his two ventures in Hawaii – a nonprofit that provides resources for people and businesses affected by the pandemic, and a delivery platform for groceries for older adults. Goodwin, meanwhile, can’t wait to bond more with Marae.

Sometimes, safe at home, when she sneezes or coughs, he shaves. Then he remembers what he did, and he thinks to himself, “Dang, I’m glad I didn ‘t put her in that situation.”