Quote:
Originally Posted by thesloppy
I just can't imagine how the hell the NFL is going to work looking at the MLB clusterfuck? The sports that have managed to pull it off so far (in the US) all seem to be using some version of a bubble model, and that doesn't even seem possible with the NFL.
Is anybody expecting a 'complete' NFL season at this point?
|
Forget the MLB, they're clearly ignorant. Take notes and especially learn from the NBA.
The massiveness of the rosters is the core to biggest issue, I think. Just players and coaches will be more than 3000 people already and that's after the normal roster cuts. I suppose larger than usual practice squads will be required to accommodate for possible injuries and COVID-19 cases.
Still, I can imagine a scenario where the NFL goes into 4 bubble locations, with 8 teams per location. They could play the interconference games first, then reserve week 5 to move 16 teams to one of the other locations and continue the regular season with conference games and divisional games without travel.
After the regular season move all teams to one location per conference for the playoffs (per conference) and use January to figure out what the best location for the Super Bowl would be.
They'll have to come up with a fair solution for the 2 games per team that are used to balance strength of schedule, but there's alternative ways for that. Heck, they might need to trim to 15 or 14 weeks, just to be able to have the bubble exchange weeks work, or have room for postponed games for whatever reasons.
All in all, the biggest issue would be that you'll need to be able to find 4 bubble locations that can host 750-1000 players and coaches, where 4 games per location per weekend can be played. Then come up with a way to safely move half the league in change weeks.
Perhaps the biggest issue is finding a way to have all those 3000-4000 football related people stay in the bubbles for 4 to 5 full months. You really can't allow for one player to go partying like Johnny Manziel in the outside world and as a result put the entire league in jeopardy. COVID-19 will show up in the bubbles at some point anyway, risk management and damage control is all you can do from there on.