CHICAGO _ NFL training camps are coming soon. Sooner by the day as a matter of fact. Circle the reporting date on the calendar if you're so inclined. July 28. Then take a moment to dream about the green light for football practices. Imagine the return of actual games.
Glorious, isn't it?
If all goes well ...
Yet the intense uncertainty of how all this is going to work _ a mass-gathering collision sport functioning as best as possible amid a pandemic _ hasn't really gone anywhere.
Troubleshooting guides are being written, sure. But specifics, to this point, have been hard to come by. And weekly revisions almost certainly will be needed.
Perhaps that's why every ounce of confidence about football in 2020 continues to be accompanied by a layer of confusion. Perhaps that's why one day's eagerness becomes the next day's anxiety.
NFL executives are still describing a realistic path toward an on-time opening of the regular season. (We're now inside of 12 weeks.) In a conference call with media Thursday afternoon, the league's chief medical officer, Dr. Allen Sills, stressed the efforts being made to create a sophisticated protocol system that will help teams deal with coronavirus testing and screening as well as treatment response and travel issues.
"(We are) setting up a very ambitious testing program," Sills said, "one that will attempt to keep everyone in the team environment as safe as possible. ... We certainly emphasize through that that testing alone is not going to be sufficient to keep everyone healthy."
That's why the road from here to Week 1 can sometimes look a lot like one of those courses from that old ABC show "Wipeout."
Full-steam ahead, everybody!
(Just watch out for those oversized spinning sweepers coming for your kneecaps. And those out-of-the-wall boxing glove jabs. And those giant rubber balls that send just about every competitor careening painfully into a shallow pool of agony below.)
