USA TODAY Sports
At the end of the press conference by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell on Thursday, he was accompanied on stage by the executive director of the NFL Players Association, DeMaurice Smith, for a few minutes.
The two men discussed how cooperation between the NFL and the NFLPA to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic made the 2020 season possible because they worked together to find solutions to major problems. One of these solutions was to carry out off-season programs remotely and the fact that it did not result in a negative result in the field will lead to further discussions on what the off-season will be like.
NFLPA President and Browns Head, JC Tretter, said at the end of the regular season that this season’s experience should lead to permanent changes in the off-season schedule and said at the NFLPA press conference on Thursday that he and others felt ” physically better and mentally sharper “than in recent years. He credited this to avoid the “endless toil” of a typical year and Smith echoed those comments.
“I think that each of these guys who lived in the football world for a long time saw their teams do many things differently, but let’s put it differently. It was smarter, ”said Smith. “So the fact that you just don’t have guys holed up in a facility for hours on end, just killing time. The fact that we can do things via teleconferencing and Skype and Zoom means we are smarter. Ultimately, what will happen is that we will have our annual representative meetings in March. We will continue to talk to players about the things that they consider a better and smarter way to play football and I think that some of these things, most things have nothing to do with COVID. “
Goodell said at his press conference that it is too early to know exactly what the off-season and the 2021 season will be like, but said that “the virtual will be part of our lives” in the future. How much this will represent will be a matter of debate in this off-season.