Surreal times

The National Football League is the most fortunate sports league on the globe.

How else can anyone explain that football is the lone sport, professional or otherwise, still active in this country while the rest of the sports world is silent?

At this time of the year, the NFL, except for free agency and the college draft, generally takes a back seat to other pro sports.

It’s the only time of the sports calendar when the other three major sports normally command the attention of fans. There is nothing normal this year.

The world – and sports world – has been brought to its knees by an invisible and virulent virus –CO(rona)VI(rus)D(ecember)-(20)19. The pandemic has cruelly shut down life as we know it. That includes one of life’s great escapes – sports.

What do we now have?

Baseball? Shut down in the middle of spring training. Plans have been made to get the season in, including the World Series. That is not a given. It is a hope.

The NBA? Locked down with almost 75% of the regular season completed. Plans for a postseason? Another hope.

The NHL? Ditto.

March Madness? Not this year. All that work for nothing.

Golf’s Masters Tournament? Postponed until later this year, as was the PGA Tournament. (This just in: The British Open has been cancelled.) 

The 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo? Postponed. Until next year.

The Kentucky Derby? Not the first Saturday in May this year. Postponed until later this year.

The Indianapolis 500? Postponed from the last Sunday in May to late August.

Wimbledon? Cancelled. Until next year.

One iconic event after another either postponed or cancelled.

So where do sports fans go now for their fix? There are no live events for the various sports networks to cover. That’s the lifeblood of electronic medium networks.

Programmers at the major networks are scrambling frantically to fill valuable airtime, in many cases doing deep dives into archival libraries. One can only imagine how much ad revenue has been lost as a result.

Outside of documentaries and magazine type pieces already in the can, fans are now getting a steady diet of oldies such as the 2006 Hamburger Eating Championship, cherry spitting, ax throwing, cup stacking, miniature golf and cornhole competition.

Live news shows, such as SportsCenter on ESPN, are looped and played throughout the evening and into the early morning hours in an effort to be available at all times in all time zones.

No relief with non-sports distractions, either. Wanna go out to eat? Uh, no. Not with stay-home mandates and most of them temporarily closed. How about taking in a movie? Nope. Same reason.

America is confined. No one knows – they can only guess – when this shutdown will end and normal life will resume with the toy department of life once again balancing the more serious aspects of everyday living.

Meanwhile, the NFL hums along after barely escaping the first wave of COVID-19, sneaking in the Super Bowl and Indy Scouting Combine before the you know what hit the you know what.

Commissioner Roger Goodell must be the envy of NBA boss Adam Silver, Rob Manfred of Major League Baseball and the NHL’s ‘s Gary Bettman. While they struggle to keep their respective sports meaningful, Goodell gets the good timing award.

But not before being forced to scale back quite a bit with regard to the upcoming college draft. The three-day event was set to take place with grand pageantry in Las Vegas April 23-25. All public events have subsequently been cancelled due to the pandemic.

It is closed to fans in an effort to limit the spread of the virus. And because of the national social distancing edict, clubs will not be permitted to meet in person with players prior to the lottery. The league went one step further early last week and shuttered the facilities of all 32 teams.

All interviews leading up to the draft will be conducted either by telephone or teleconference, incurring the wrath of just about every personnel man in the league.

Imagine that. Clubs will actually have to make their decisions based on what they have seen on tape and/or film rather than how players comport themselves outside the game itself.

That’s the way clubs approached the draft before the sophistication of scouting players as the popularity of the event skyrocketed. What players did on the field was given more importance back then than it is now.

As it stands, the lottery will be conducted with very little fanfare in an undetermined location with those chosen standing by at home.  The league said it was looking for “innovative options for how the process will be conducted and will provide that information as it becomes available.” Still waiting.

Beyond that, the immediate future of the NFL is floating on clouds of uncertainty. What follows the draft? Normally, it’s minicamps, Organized Team Activities (OTA) and then summer training camp.

Minicamps require mandatory attendance. Not so the OTAs, which are voluntary. If the virtual national lockdown because of the virus remains in effect as late as June or July, there is no certainty NFL teams will conduct business as usual on the field.

That puts the Browns and other teams with new coaching staffs at a disadvantage. New Cleveland head coach Kevin Stefanski needs minicamps and OTAs to install his system so by the time training camp arrives in late July, the players ostensibly will have a good idea of what to expect.

Without these sessions, and this also assumes the pandemic will have quieted down and there will be a training camp, Stefanski will face an uphill battle in his rookie season as a head coach.

That, of course, is if there is a 2020 NFL season at all. And right now, no one on this planet can guarantee that. Not even Roger Goodell.