Why not a bubble?

When the National Football League decided earlier this year that there would be a 2020 season in spite of a plague virile enough to cause a global pandemic, skeptics immediately cast doubt.

Why wouldn't they? How can a sport where human contact is essential to how the game is played escape a virus that is highly contagious and deadly? No way, they believed. 

It ultimately shut down Major League Baseball in the middle of spring training and brought to a screeching in midseason the National Basketball Association, National Hockey League and all college sports.

Major events throughout the sports world had to be either postponed to a later date or cancelled altogether until next year.. But the cry around the NFL was onward and upward. Professional baseball, basketball and hockey, meanwhile, managed to survive with truncated seasons and bubbles. 

As the year wore on, the NFL stood firm and adjusted to make certain playing and completing the 2020 season right up until the Super Bowl in early February was the main goal. It was almost as though they were going to show it could be done and nothing was going to stop it.

But they were forced to make adjustments along the way because the coronavirus was rapidly spreading. The annual college football draft, normally a staple on national television from various cities around the league, was beamed virtually from the comfort of the basement of Commissioner Roger Goodell's home.

League facilities were shut down to prevent the virus from spreading. A quarantining of sorts the league took seriously. And yet, the eye was still on the goal of getting this season in the books.

Offseason activities were cancelled. Minicamps were cancelled. Training camps, which normally begin in late July, were delayed. There was nothing normal about what was happening and the skeptics' doubt heightened.

One by one, the staple events of the early season were either postponed or canceled. First, it was the Hall of Fame inductions in Canton. The early exhibition games were next. And then league determined the best course of action was to roll right into the regular season with no exhibitions.

Coverage of the teams was greatly affected. News outlets no longer interview players, coaches and front office people in person. Everything is done virtually by Zoom. If nothing else, that takes the personal aspect out of the equation.

And now here we are nearly13 weeks later and the virus is raging even more out of control throughout the nation and here stands the NFL, still around while the impact of the virus forces them to alter the scheduling of some of their games to the point of embarrassment.  

Just about every one of the league's 32 teams have been hit by the virus in one way or another. That includes many big-name players like Myles Garrett of the Browns, New England's Cam Newton and Stephone Gilmore, Baltimore's Lamar Jackson and Mark Andrews, Maurkice Pouncey of the Steelers and Kansas City's Mitchell Schwartz.

What happened last week with regard to the Baltimore-Pittsburgh game is the residue of the stubbornness of the league to complete the season. Due to an enormous COVID-19 outbreak with the Ravens, the game, originally scheduled for last Thursday night, was initially moved to Sunday.

When the medical situation worsened, the game was moved to Monday night. Still no improvement and Tuesday was targeted. Eventually, the game was played late Wednesday afternoonSo it went from Thursday to Sunday to Monday to Tuesday to Wednesday. 

Furthermore, the entire Denver Broncos quarterbacks room was wiped out by the virus for a Sunday game. A wide receiver on the practice squad who played quarterback in college was summoned and played as you'd expect. 

Embarrassing. 

The mere imminence of the virus has caused clubs to shut down immediately for hours at a time, which often times affects game prep.

What does this tell you about the NFL? It tells you this league is desperate enough to legitimize this kind of football just for the sake of proving it can be done. But at what cost? The injury rate in the league is higher this season because there was no run-up to the season from a physical standpoint.

We are now in week 13 with five more weeks and the many rounds of the playoffs remaining before this is all over. Right now, the league is staggering to the finish line. And while I'm in no position to tell them what to do, I nevertheless offer the following:

If the NFL is fortunate enough to complete the 17 weeks of the regular season, they should seriously consider following the template used by the NBA, NHL and MLB and create a bubble to shield the players in order to determine the next Super Bowl champion.

It might be uncomfortable for them to be away from family and friends for a brief period, but it will insure the health of participants and bring safe closure to a season not many expected would reach that kind of conclusion.