The Houston Texans and Kansas City Chiefs appear to be on track to commence the 101st NFL season on Sept. 10 at Arrowhead Stadium.
According to Dr. Allen Sills, the NFL’s chief medical officer, via an interview with NBC Sports’ Peter King, the league doesn’t anticipate having their regular season delayed to the the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I remain very optimistic that we will play the season as scheduled,” Sills said. “None of us has a crystal ball. Three months is a long time.”
Sills also went on in his interview with King to note that the league is still hammering out its testing, which Sills referred to as a “surveillance program.” COVID-19 testing is an issue the league and the NFL Players Association is working through.
One of the biggest parts of the new normal in the NFL will be “infection control officers,” which are typically the head athletic trainers.
“We feel the Infection Control Officer is going to play an important role,” said Sills. But he wanted to be clear about this: “Everyone’s going to be responsible for a team’s environment. Everybody’s got to be conscious about wearing masks and hand-washing and social-distancing away from the facility. Everyone has a role to play. Everyone shares the risk. Testing, cleaning, separation in physical distancing — it’s not a one-person job.”
By September, there will be copious example of mass gatherings and live events that should help the NFL get a better feel for where the world is at with COVID-19. The NBA is set to return on July 31 with a 22-team format in Orlando, Fla. If that sport is able to finish its altered regular season without sustaining any infections, then it should provide more optimism that the rest of the sports world can finish its business in 2020 and provide a safe framework for the future.
