Until this weekend, the most important news of NFL education camps was that there had been no wonderful news.
No star player wave tested positive for COVID-19. No major outbreak of the virus has been discovered despite tens of thousands of tests.
That replaced, if only for a few hours, with a wave of positive tests that forced NFL groups into interference mode. It seemed, if only briefly, that even plans to launch a season in the NFL were to be sunk by a virus that refuses to be tamed.
It’s possible it’s still happening. Some people think that this is most likely to happen eventually.
But for now, the NFL turned out to have escaped largely unharmed. Nothing is certain at the time of COVID-19, however, the evidence indicates laboratory disorders for a series of positive tests on Saturday that were distributed among various teams.
It’s time to take a deep breath and relax.
Or is that it?
At a minimum, the tests that led the groups to postpone and cancel practices are a wake-up call for those who are drawn to the relative calm of educational camps across the country. They point out that the virus can wreak havoc at any time, even if it did not turn out to be one of those cases.
The fact that they positioned themselves on a weekend less than 3 weeks after the start of the season doesn’t escape anyone. It was relatively simple for the groups to postpone training, but it’s not hard to believe what could happen if there had been a series of positive tests in the league on a Saturday of the normal season.
“It’s best to happen now in three weeks,” Buffalo general manager Brandon Beane said. “But it turns out that every few weeks, including every single week, anything happens. Who knows what the next curveball will be.”
The answer, of course, is no one. Even if the first game of September 10 between Kansas City and Texas is approaching, there is no way of knowing whether the league will play all of its scheduled games, some of its scheduled games or any of its scheduled games.
There are too many things that can happen or not. Too likely things will turn south in a league that looks to play outdoors in a bubble environment.
The NFL rolls the bucket after baseball in a desperate attempt to launch a season. The league does this through massive check resources, adding daily checks for one player, and with plans for one and both eventualities that it believes might arise.
But you can’t do much if Tom Brady tested positive the day before Tampa Bay made his way to New Orleans. Just as many plans as you can make for the Chiefs’ offensive line opposed to the virus the week they open up the defense of their Super Bowl name in Kansas City.
And how do you play if 12 members of the Minnesota Vikings, 10 New York Jets players and nine Chicago Bears players test positive as they did on Saturday, and they don’t turn out to be false positives?
The NFL has already adjusted its verification protocols following Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford, who said the team had had a false positive this month. Players who dial negative twice without delay after a first positive check and who do not have a known source of infection can now resume education and play.
Before the wave of suspicious controls that Beane said could involve only 10 or 11 teams, the NFL was strangely fine with the virus in the education field. There have been no known primary outbreaks on any team, and early control effects showed a positive rate of less than 1% for players.
In fact, the largely clever news on the front of the virus for the league, even if the first educational sessions of the Las Vegas Raiders and the Los Angeles Rams in their shiny new stages in recent days were a clear reminder that if the season played, it would. will be played largely in front of empty seats.
“It starts to feel normal, and then something like that comes along and puts the fact that any second, any time, something like this can happen to a player, a coach, anyone,” Erik Harris said for Raiders’ safety.
One more proof, if you like now, that the virus is unpredictable and can appear anywhere.
And the truth is, it’s going to be a season like no other.
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Tim Dahlberg is a national columnist for the Associated Press. Write to [email protected] or http://twitter.com/timdahlberg