The NFL continues to plan for a full 2020 season, and it continues to have confidence that it will happen.
Dr. Allen Sills has told Mark Maske of the Washington Post that he believes the league will be able to start and finish the season as planned.
“I think that I personally remain very optimistic that we’re going to be able to have a 2020 season and have it along the schedule that we’ve planned,” Sills said.
The league is determined to play the 256 regular-season games and 13 postseason games in 2020. Whether it can will depend on the ability to repeatedly test players and coaches and anyone in the vicinity of the practice field or game sites, and to immediately quarantine anyone who is positive and to have a plan for dealing with an outbreak.
With 32 teams and five months of practices and games, an outbreak could be inevitable. The league needs to catch any spread of the virus quickly and to have a plan for deal promptly with five or 10 or 20 or more positive cases in a given team, or the season will be shut down not long after it gets started.