Not long ago, the NFL was carrying on with its day-to-day business while MLB was entrenched in a frustrating labor dispute that was becoming increasingly bitter and public. Now, those roles are almost entirely reversed.

As baseball is gearing up to play and find some normalcy, the NFL is steadily approaching a potentially ugly standoff between players and the league. As discussed yesterday, the players want the league to establish clear COVID-19 protocols before they agree to show up to training camps, which are slated to start this week, and they’re becoming quite vocal in order to put more pressure on the NFL.

We’re all hoping for the best so that we can have our football Sundays this fall but, unfortunately, the optimism has its limits at this point. Our good pal Jason La Canfora says things are “almost certain to get messier before it gets sorted out.”

• JLC: “I recently spoke with four NFL general managers — all of whom still had significant questions themselves as to how camp and the preseason will actually play out — and while there were varying opinions about what a COVID-19 training camp should look like, there was agreement among all that it seemed close to impossible to start camp as normal on the current veteran date (July 28) and be able to conduct the sort of practice schedule teams would have in years past.”
• Anonymous NFC GM: “There is still a lot to be worked out. I figure there is a grievance and maybe we get it worked out in time to start in mid-August. I’d guess one preseason game and I bet we end up doing a 12 game schedule. I don’t know that — no one does right now. But that’s how I think it will play out.”

Bet the NFL right here!

There hasn’t really been a whole lot of pressure on the NFL up until this point, but with the schedule creeping up, we might soon see the gloves come off like we did with MLB and the MLBPA.

JLC believes there will eventually be football this year (there’s too much money at stake to lose an entire season) but it may be a bumpy, extended road to get to that point. Luckily, we’ll probably have other sports to keep us busy while the NFL sorts out its own mess, which isn’t a luxury that came with baseball’s nightmare.

Still, I don’t even want to think about how bad Sunday Scaries will be in the fall if there’s no NFL/RedZone/fantasy football to burn the day away. Somebody hold me.