NFL Covid Rules and Effectiveness

The NFL surprisingly started their season on time despite all the setbacks fans thought would occur. All teams planned on playing a full schedule this year. Unfortunately, due to Covid this has already been changed, and teams have missed games out of an abundance of caution to stop the spread of the Virus. The NFL has set in place a great amount of rules so that players, coaches, and anyone else involved in the industry will be safe. Some rules have been effective stopping the spread and others not so much.

To start off, the NFL has not been playing with the bubble concept like the NBA where all the teams were locked down in one location and stayed in hotels until their team was out of the playoffs according to Tadd Haislop with Sporting News. The number of fans in each stadium will be drastically lower, and some stadiums are not allowing any fans at all to enter. This is a big change in real life noise level, but stadiums plan to play fan noise over the loudspeakers. The NFL also cancelled all preseason games to stop the potential for more Covid spread. Masks are required to be worn by all players during travel and when inside the team facilities. The only exception when not wearing them is during practices and workouts. On game day it depends on players but coaches and staff members on the side lines must wear masks per NFL Covid-19 protocol on NFL.com.

As for effectiveness for the NFL Covid guidelines seem to be doing pretty well. Teams are consistently testing the players at least once a day. There have been cases pop up on teams all across the country but officials are quick to stay on top of it so that the season can go on. There have been a few significant spikes in cases throughout the league. For example the Tennessee Titans faced an outbreak on the team. Many people were skeptical if this would cause the NFL season to come to an end. The Titans were fined $350,000 for this outbreak according to apnews.com, and pushed them to be better about their protocols. This also shows other teams that the NFL is putting their foot down on their Covid rules throughout the league.

As the season continues on players, coaches, and staff are reminded constantly to wear masks and maintain social distancing as much as they can. Hopefully the rest of the season will go on without a problem, but we will have to wait to find that out. One thing many people are wondering about is the Super Bowl, how will it go on, will there be fans, and will there be a live or virtual halftime show . People all across the country are waiting to see how this turns out. The NFL has taken good precautions all throughout the league that have been mostly effective. Dr. Michael Saag told the NY Times he agrees when he said the NFL got a “ Tip of the hat for their success so far but it’s something that requires constant vigilance.”