At the moment, with COVID-19 deaths on the decline and pro sports making plans to reopen, it appears that the NFL season will start on time. But that doesn’t mean the whole season will proceed on schedule.
Lions team doctor Asheesh Bedi warns that if the NFL in particular and society as a whole can’t do the work necessary to keep the virus from spreading, a second wave could hit in the fall that would cause the NFL to shut down.
“In the fall, it’s really going to be about continuing those safe measures that might have us avoid seeing a second wave becoming a major or even more devastating second peak,” Bedi told Adam Schefter, via the Detroit Free Press. “If that were to happen, and despite all of the safeguards that we have in place, I think that gets back to the need to be able to pivot quickly. . . . I think we need to quickly recognize that our priority will always be safety. And if that means that we have to change our workflow, abridge seasons, modify how we’re working through things, that just has to happen.”
The trajectory of the virus has proven difficult if not impossible to predict, which means no one really knows where things will be in the middle of the NFL season. But no one should assume that just because the season starts on time, that means the NFL and America are in the clear.