Professional COVID Protocols: NBA - 1 ; NFL - 0

 

Once again, where the NBA has shined, the NFL is blowing it.

The longest and most unconventional NBA season has finally come to an end with the Los Angeles Lakers being crowned champions for the first time since the late Kobe Bryant led the franchise to a title in 2010. But that’s not even the most noteworthy thing about this season.

After witnessing the bizarre restart of the NBA, one thing has been proven: three months plus 172 games divided by 6,500 people locked in the “bubble” at the ESPN Wide World of Sports complex in Orlando, Florida…equals zero positive COVID-19 cases.

Meanwhile, it only took the NFL three and a half weeks for the COVID monkey to jump on its back. The spike of positive tests within the ranks of the Tennessee Titans and the subsequent game postponements that followed are confirming an unfortunate truth: the NFL has let COVID get the drop on it, despite having months to get ahead.

I mean, c’mon, I was hoping we would at least be in the throes of conference play before players and personnel started dropping like flies.

Now this isn’t to say that the NFL is letting COVID run rampant through the league like locusts in a wheat field. To their credit, they have levied some hefty fines for coaches caught not wearing proper face masks on the sideline. Pete Carroll, Sean Payton and Jon Gruden are among the coaches who were hit with $100,000 fines for improper mask coverage during games, with each team incurring an additional $250,000 penalty. The issue is that the NFL had the perfect example, a 100-proof model on how to ensure the safety of its players, coaches and personnel, and it basically ignored it.

We all remember the odd purgatory that was the emergence of the United States’ COVID-19 outbreak in March 2020. The world was shutting down left and right and all we could do was watch as our precious world of sports inevitably fell victim as well. Months and months of nothing but silence from sports leagues and organizations because just like the rest of us, no one had a clue what to do. When the whispers began of the “chances” of “possibly” resuming the NBA season at Disney World, it felt like a long shot. No one really knew if it would work, but it did. The entire sports world was watching in skepticism, but commissioner Adam Silver and the NBA managed to pull off one of the most successful sports experiments ever and all the NFL had to do was copy it…or at least change a few words and put their name on it.

Hoping to salvage the season and what’s left of my faith, the NFL has updated its COVID safety protocols, prohibiting outside gatherings and implementing a video surveillance system to ensure team compliance in facilities. Why wasn’t this a consideration prior to the start of the season?

Your guess is as good as mine.

The reality is that this isn’t the first time the NFL has come up short in comparison to the NBA. We’ve painfully watched the NFL flub and fumble with how to address issues of social justice for years. Players have been blackballed and silenced, with little support from their organizations and team owners. Only recently have NFL players been placated with a few platforms to advocate the issues of their choice.

A hashtag on the bottom corner of a cleat is nice, but when the NBA is dedicating the remainder of its season to condemn racial inequality and allowing players to emblaze “Black Lives Matter” and “Say Her Name” statements on their jerseys, it feels like there’s more work to be done by the league that essentially owns a day of the week.

There’s still plenty of football left to play, but with a projected COVID spike to occur in tandem with flu season, it could be too little, too late to steal a page from the NBA’s book. Let’s hope it doesn’t take a Memorial Day Super Bowl for Roger Goodell and company to get it right.