Brady's Roadhouse

The NFL season ended this past Sunday with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers defeating the Kansas City Chiefs 31-9 in Super Bowl 55. The Buccaneers won their second Super Bowl, and Tom Brady won his 7th ring. A lot of planning went on by the NFL to play in the middle of a global pandemic before the Super Bowl happened. The NHL, NBA and MLB completed their seasons during the pandemic. It was now the NFL’s turn, and the league did a great job with the COVID-19 protocols they put in place to keep everyone safe.

There was a lot of uncertainty in the world when the pandemic started. All sports were suspended until further notice. People said the NFL had an advantage since its first game of the season wasn’t until September. It turns out that they did. You might be asking yourself; how did the NFL pull this off when grown men are tackling each other? Well, they had a lot of safety protocols in place.

Let’s start all the way back in late April for the 2020 NFL Draft. The draft was supposed to be held in Las Vegas. It then got moved to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell’s basement so the event could take place virtually. The 2020 NFL Draft was a huge success. It set average audience highs for each day. Day one had a rating of over 15.6 million viewers, which was up 37% compared to 2019. This was probably due to no live sports going on at the time, but the NFL scored a touchdown with the 2020 Draft.

Now we’ll fast forward to the preseason. All offseason workouts were done virtually and fans weren’t allowed to attend training camps. Teams got tested every day for the first two weeks of training camp. The major factor the NFL eliminated here: no preseason games. Teams also couldn’t hold joint practices like beforehand. That was a good step to eliminate preseason games because for a lot of the regular players, it doesn’t mean anything to them.

Once the regular season rolled around, teams were tested daily. Each member of the team had a contact tracing bracelet that they had to wear. This way if there was a positive case, contact tracing would be easy to do, and those close contacts would have to quarantine. For example, if a player was in close contact with a positive case the Tuesday before a game, he could still play. That player could still play if he tested negative five days in a row.

People thought the NFL was crazy to not go to a bubble like the NHL and NBA did. It wasn’t possible to do because of the larger number of players that are on a team. So, the NFL stuck with its original schedule. For the most part, the NFL was able to contain the spread of the coronavirus. Every team had positive cases but avoided a massive outbreak except for the Tennessee Titans and Baltimore Ravens. Twenty-three players and staff members tested positive. The Titans held a practice off-campus after their facility was closed due to a positive case. The NFL fined the Titans $350,00 for its actions.

The Ravens had 23 players on the COVID-19 reserve list. They had a strength and conditioning coach not wear his mask, not report symptoms and be in close-contact with all of those players. The NFL fined the Ravens $250,000 but Baltimore kept all of its draft picks which I didn’t agree with. The Las Vegas Raiders and New Orleans Saints each lost draft picks and got fined for not wearing their masks. They shouldn’t have received a harsher penalty than the Titans and Ravens.

The NFL had to adapt to changing its COVID-19 protocols during the season. Overall, they did a fantastic job with handling the pandemic. Was it perfect? No. Was it fair? No. The NFL did accomplish their goal in completing a season and crowning a Super Bowl champion. Hopefully, next season is as successful as this one was and next time more fans can be in attendance.