For months, the NFL and its players have consistently minimized the need for a post-season bubble, rather than insisting on the importance of players and teams following the COVID-19 safety protocols to end the season.
The approach usually worked. On Sunday, the league ended a regular season of 256 games on time, plus some postponements and rescheduling of disputes caused by outbreaks of COVID of varying degrees of severity. However, withdrawing the playoffs and playing the Super Bowl in early February would always pose the biggest challenge for the NFL, especially with cases of COVID growing across the country.
And with so much money at stake and TV contracts to fulfill during the most important point of the season, one cannot help thinking: would the same league that hates to adjust its schedule be willing to, Sigh, postpone your game for a week due to a significant outbreak of COVID?
The truth is, we still don’t know. But we can find out soon.
How the Browns spurt rocked the NFL playoffs
From December 27 to January 2, there were 34 new positive tests among players and 36 new positive tests among other employees, the most the NFL has had for seven days since the start of the season.
And on Tuesday morning, the league approached the unknown when the Cleveland Browns, who made the playoffs for the first time since the 2002 season, received five positive tests (including coach Kevin Stefanski), making the your team closed Tuesday and probably Wednesday.
In the past few weeks, the Browns have placed 17 players on their COVID-19 reserve list. Contact tracking is in progress, and players and team members will continue to be tested before their tilt on Sunday night in Pittsburgh.
What if more players and team members are positive? What if things get worse? Is there a chance that the game will be delayed, potentially disrupting the playoff schedule and Super Bowl schedule?
The answer, says NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith, appears to be a resounding … we’ll see.
“The only thing I can say is that there has been no conversation about postponing the playoffs or the Super Bowl that I have had with the league since the start of the playoffs,” Smith told reporters on Tuesday.
This does not mean that it could Never to happen.
“You know me, I’m always suspicious when someone says we’re going to get X, Y and Z off the table. I really don’t know what that means in a global pandemic, ”said Smith. “It seems to me that we got to where we are because we kept a lot of options at stake.”
That’s where the problem lies. If the Cleveland outbreak worsens or another team experiences a more serious problem, Smith acknowledged that many of the same contingencies that were used during the regular season to keep the season on track – postponing games, exchanging confrontations, etc. – they can no longer be available because, um, they are the playoffs.
“We tried to be incredibly flexible all year – we saw some games being moved, some games rescheduled,” said Smith. “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 for the game during the playoffs that precede the Super Bowl, which is why we are emphasizing that it will require even greater vigilance. “
So yes, the Cleveland situation can really serve as a wake-up call to the other 13 league playoff teams.
Browns’ Tretter argues against the playoff bubble
In the meantime, the league and its players have yet to find out whether the wild card game between Pittsburgh and Cleveland can be played as scheduled. In that regard, Smith insisted that the union will continue to make decisions motivated by what is in the best interests of the safety of players and the team.
By his own standards this season, it meant simply asking whether the outbreak is contained within the team. If so, the game went as planned – damn competitive balance. Denver was forced to play a Week 12 game without a real quarterback, for example, just because the outbreak was determined to be contained.
“This was a difficult scenario for the Denver Broncos, to have none of their defenders,” said Smith. “I think it would be a little unfair if you change the rules later, just because it’s a playoff game. So what we would like to do is make medical and data-based decisions. I think it’s a very slippery slope to start making decisions in another way. “
So, in those words, it looks like the only way for the next Browns playoff game to be moved is if your COVID situation it is not contained, a possibility that Browns Center and NFLPA President JC Tretter recognized.
“When it comes to competitive advantage, that’s not how we’re going to make decisions,” said Tretter. “We have to continue to make decisions through the health and safety lens, and we have to continue to track the contract, continue to find out where this is 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 observers may grow. But even with his team facing a situation in which he will possibly be forced to play the long-awaited playoff with a short-handed, Tretter still does not believe that the teams would be better off with a post-season bubble.
“The bubble, I don’t think, was ever an option that would have worked, especially a voluntary bubble,” said Tretter. “Again, I think that if you follow today’s test, if we play the bubble scenario we bubble in after our Sunday game, those five guys who tested positive today would have tested positive inside the bubble, and one of the reasons why that we close the facility is to make sure that we are not all together.
“So, I would argue if we bubble up, everything we know now, and put everyone together under one roof, now we have five people becoming positive inside the bubble and I think that makes us more susceptible to negative results than separating, living away from each other and keeping as much distance as possible. So, I think the voluntary bubble wouldn’t help us with the way things went. ”
What people should understand about the Browns’ current COVID situation, Tretter noted, is that the virus is insidious.
“I think what this proves is that even when it does everything right, this virus is so contagious that it doesn’t guarantee full protection,” said Tretter. “This is something that we talked about from the beginning.
“You take coach Stefanski, who had an incredible first season as head coach, brings us into the playoffs and cannot be there to be with us. A guy like [guard] Joel Bitonio, who has played for so long in Cleveland and has his first chance to play in the playoffs, but was left out. This is difficult and I feel for them. “
Still, the raid continues in Cleveland, where contact tracking continues, and if the best scenario for the league unfolds, the virus is finally contained, TBD contingencies prove unnecessary and the Browns will only be forced to play their biggest game. in two decades short-handed.
Little sums up the 2020 season better than that, although Tretter is keeping the faith.
“We won this game and hope that the players and coaches will be able to return next week,” said Tretter. “It would be great for them to still get that playoff experience.”
More from Yahoo Sports: