© Jack Gruber via Imagn Content Services via Imagn Content Services via Imagn Content Services, LLC
The NFL season should only proceed in one way, according to Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and one of the members of the White House coronavirus task force: in a so-called bubble, like the one the NBA is using in Orlando, Florida, to finish out its season.
On Monday, Fauci warned that this was the only viable approach to returning.
“Unless players are essentially in a bubble — insulated from the community and they are tested nearly every day — it would be very hard to see how football is able to be played this fall,” Fauci said. “If there is a second wave, which is certainly a possibility and which would be complicated by the predictable flu season, football may not happen this year.”
The NFL has stated repeatedly that it plans to start on time, with training camp beginning July 28 at team’s own practice facilities with no joint practices. Dr. Allen Sills, the league’s chief medical officer, responded to Fauci, effectively saying the league is aware of all the concerns he brought up, is developing an extensive testing protocol (in which players could reportedly be tested up to three times a week per ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler), and thanks, but we’re going to play the season.
On a Wednesday conference call, Sills effectively ruled out a bubble saying, “We do not feel it’s practical or appropriate to construct a bubble.”
NFL Chief Medical Officer Allen Sills issued these comments in response to Dr. Anthony Fauci expressing concern about the upcoming season: pic.twitter.com/8YXrpzKIXS
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) June 18, 2020
What Fauci’s statement seems to forget is that it’s the NFL. It is a multi-billion dollar enterprise which has had the opportunity to see how major sports leagues around the world are approaching a return to play, and perhaps more importantly, it’s a league which has a history of not protecting its players, and in being aggressively profit-driven. While all leagues are based on making a profit, the NFL is the best at it, and the idea that they wouldn’t play a season at all is probably out of the question.
It’s unclear how a bubble would work, given that it would need to be in place for upwards of five months for the NFL, whereas the NBA’s bubble will be about a three-month endeavor. Soccer leagues in Europe, where the virus has been on a significant decline, unlike the U.S., have resumed play in their own stadiums with extensive testing protocols.