Et is not easy to organize a game operation in which every week cadres with a large crowd of players, coaches and support staff are out and about in a country as extensive as the United States. And in which all processes have to be unwound on the basis of a time schedule set well in advance.
The National Football League NFL saw just how complicated this can get a year ago when, after the first wave of infections subsided, it went through a season in the midst of a pandemic. Peak encounters had to be postponed for several days because too many players were infected with Covid-19. The New England Patriots, for example, found themselves forced to charter a second plane at short notice to fly from the east coast to Kansas City: one exclusively for players who had come too close to quarterback Cam Newton, who had tested positive. And one for everyone else.
Newton, one of the best playmakers in recent years, was supposed to fill the void left by Tom Brady, who joined the Tampa Bay Buccaneers after five Super Bowl wins. However, the team did not even reach the play-offs of the top twelve teams. Nonetheless, the news a week ago that the club would split with Newton a few days before the start of the new season came as a surprise. The decision may have something to do with how the quarterback had handled the new rules the league had put in place to deal with the risk of contagion.
According to this, unvaccinated players have to undergo a Covid test every day and are not allowed to leave the hotel while traveling to away games. Vaccinated people are not subject to such restrictions and only have to have a test every fourteen days. One can only speculate about Newton’s status. At the training camp he had stated that the vaccination issue was a personal matter. The club is silent. The Patriots now worked on their young quarterback Mac Jones, who was drafted in the spring.
No more game rescheduling
The first competitive game: on Sunday in their own stadium against the Miami Dolphins. As for the future in a duel with another opponent, the corona virus, the conditions in the NFL are still unclear. A little over a week ago, the Tennessee Titans reported that nine players and the coach had tested positive. E.
A development to which the league would have reacted relatively flexibly by relocating players last year. Now it is over. League managing director Roger Goodell made it clear weeks ago that the rules for the game are non-negotiable: “Every club is obliged to compete with its team on the scheduled date and at the scheduled location.” If you fail to do that, you not only lose that Game at the green table.
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The players of the teams concerned are deducted the corresponding portion of their annual salary. The pressure from above, the NFL leadership had apparently speculated, would lead club officials to break resistance among prominent players to vaccination. “We’re experiencing a new big wave with the Delta variant,” said Allen Sills, the league’s chief medical officer.
According to the Associated Press, while more than 90 percent of professionals are vaccinated, the open resistance of professionals to the protective measure complicates the situation. And the massive requirements hardly seem to change any of the vaccine opponents’ minds. Neither does the catalog of fines, which include a fine of $ 14,650 for professionals who get lost in a nightclub, or $ 50,000 for attempts to sabotage contact tracing.
What neither the league nor the players’ union, which had agreed to the Covid rules, saw coming was the risk of spread that comes from vaccinated people who not only get sick but can also transmit the virus. The union is therefore now calling for daily tests for everyone.
A demand that continues to drive up the costs for the clubs, but meets with little sympathy among vaccinated and frustrated NFL professionals. Typical of the attitude of Patriots defensive player Matthew Judon, who complained about the union and criticized one thing above all: The organization had accepted that if a game is canceled, every team member, whether vaccinated or infected or not, loses part of his salary.
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