NFL’s offseason events can’t hide grim coronavirus question

We all keep our fingers crossed for any kind of professional sports season, but especially for an NFL season.

The release of the NFL schedule on Thursday night allows us to close our eyes and imagine possibilities that stand on the opposite end of the spectrum from quarantine and social distancing and a virtual America engulfed in a living hell.

If there will be some kind of season, the likelihood is it will be played in empty or near-empty stadiums, and as eerie as that may be, we will welcome the NFL back with open arms and hold it tight for as long as COVID-19 will allow it.

The question: Will COVID-19 allow it?

Will there be an NFL season?
Are all of us — Roger Goodell’s NFL and Football America — simply hoping against hope?

No one, of course, knows. Not Roger Goodell, not Dr. Anthony Fauci, no one.

Hoping against hope, in the absence of a vaccine, is the only hope we can possibly have right now.

The NFL has been plowing full-speed ahead like Jim Brown: It kept the start of the legal tampering portion of free agency on March 16 — four days after the NBA canceled games after Rudy Gobert of the Jazz tested positive for coronavirus, the NCAA canceled March Madness and MLB canceled spring training and postponed the start of the regular season by at least two weeks.

And even as the free-agency frenzy began, as we began to have the phrase “flatten the curve” hammered into our heads, as the desperate need for ventilators began to explode, the NFL was forced to cancel its grandiose Las Vegas draft plans.

The NFL was adamant — even in the face of some resistance within its own ranks that the optics weren’t right — the draft would be held, and though it was an historic Virtual NFL Draft, it proved to be an oasis in our desert of despair — from Goodell announcing picks from the basement of his Bronxville, N.Y., home, to Joe Burrow, to Abby Judge, Joe Judge’s golden retriever, and Nike, Bill Belichick’s Alaskan Klee Kai.

And now a full 16-game schedule release that guarantees nothing about a 16-game schedule.

It is practical business practice with the start of the NFL season still four months away, given the desire to keep sponsors engaged and, with viewership up 5 percent in 2019, TV networks already paying approximately $1 billion annually tripping over themselves to keep feeding the goose that lays the golden egg.

Each professional sports league must continue to confront the new normal as it hopes to open or reopen, and map out contingency plans for worst-case scenarios.

It feels inevitable that the rubber will meet the road for the NFL, too.

The threat of a second wave of COVID-19 washing over us in the fall is both sobering and frightening.

The NFL season is scheduled to begin Sept. 10.

Man, how much do we yearn to watch Tom Brady throwing to Rob Gronkowski in a Buccaneers uniform against Drew Brees on Sept. 13 in New Orleans? The jaw-dropping theatrics of Patrick Mahomes and Lamar Jackson? Belichick coaching without Brady?

“The plan is to move forward as normal, to play a full season, a full schedule, until the medical community tells us otherwise,” NFL VP of football operations Troy Vincent told NFL Network.

Odell Beckham Jr. versus Dave Gettleman and the Giants? Viva Las Vegas for Jon Gruden’s Raiders? Philip Rivers as a Colt? Tua Tagovailoa in Miami? Burrow in Cincinnati? Big Ben Roethlisberger back in the Steelers’ saddle?

But we must also ask ourselves:

How many games will have to be canceled?

How many games will be played?

What happens if and when one player or coach is infected with the virus?

There is no social distancing in huddles, right?

Can we be certain that the testing, as rigorous as it will be, is foolproof?

So many questions, and no definitive answers.

So many need their fantasy football fix. So many crave NFL games to bet on. So many want to wear their Brady jerseys and their Mahomes jerseys and rally behind their team.

The NFL keeps moving the chains, keeps driving down the field.

But will it need a Hail Mary to give us an NFL as we have come to know and love it?

Will we even have Super Bowl LV? With or without fans?

We will keep hope alive. But we should also recognize that not even the mighty NFL has immunity from COVID-19.

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