Among the issues that have been discussed by the NFL and the NFL Players Association ahead of training camp has been how to deal with the projected loss of revenue due to the COVID-19 pandemic and that question came up during a conference call with union leadership on Friday.
Word on Thursday was that the league wants to take the financial hit over the next two years rather than stretch it out over the life of the current Collective Bargaining Agreement. The latter position is the one proposed by the union and executive director DeMaurice Smith said Friday that a drastic cut in the size of the salary cap for next season would lead to a slew of players being cut around the league.
The NFLPA isn’t making the economic discussion their top priority at the moment, however. Smith and NFLPA president JC Tretter both said that the issues governing player safety, which include protocols at team facilities and testing frequency, have to be settled before moving onto the cap issues.
Smith said that the union began to receive Infectious Disease Emergency Response from teams on Thursday night and they will be reviewing them to make sure they are in compliance with the protocols discussed with the league. That would be a step toward nailing down the safety issues that would allow other conversations to take center stage.