The NFL’s owners conducted a conference call on Friday that didn’t generate much news. They’ll meet again on Monday.
Via Adam Schefter of ESPN.com, a 2:00 p.m. ET conversation will occur among the membership “as they try to finalize health and safety measures, financial arrangements, and reducing or eliminating preseason games.”
The league unilaterally slashed the preseason from four games to two. The NFL Players Association wants none. The league more recently has proposed one.
The NFL continues to tie health/safety and financial arrangements together, even thought the NFLPA wants to deal with the safety side of things before turning to the monetary issues. Presumably, the league hopes to use the potential relaxation of a hard-line position on lost revenue arising from the pandemic (the league wants the losses to be absorbed in 2020 and 2021) in order to secure a more favorable agreement on pandemic protocols from the union.
Regardless, the time has come for compromise and partnership. The two sides need to quickly band together and focus on their common enemy: The virus.