Opening night: one month from tonight. The Houston Texans likely will be significant underdogs at Super Bowl champion Kansas City, and rightfully so. But the important thing in 2020 is something else, on the weekend we passed 5 million documented COVID-19 cases as a country. It’s actually whether Houston-Kansas City, and the 268 NFL games [more]
Lamar Jackson did not watch the Super Bowl. The game was on his home turf in south Florida for the first time in 10 years, and Jackson loves football, but he couldn’t bring himself to watch. Not the biggest surprise, really; players who think they should be playing in the game often don’t watch it—just [more]
When the deal to open training camps on time got done Friday, a call was organized for all the football people, coaches and GMs, in the NFL. Super Bowl champion coach Andy Reid was asked to speak. He’s become a sort of United Nations secretary general, a bridge to all constituencies—speaking to union reps, advising [more]
EAGAN, Minn. — The head coach lost his parking space. COVID-19 casualty. There’s a 40-foot BioReference Laboratories trailer in space 136 in the Minnesota Vikings’ players/coaches parking lot just outside the entry where every essential Vikings employee will arrive to work this year. The trailer has four COVID testing bays, with certified testing agents ready [more]
Texans safety Michael Thomas steps in for Peter King this week to lay out why Colin Kaepernick should be playing in the NFL, what’s next for social justice and the league and more. [more]
Peter King is on vacation until July 20, and he lined up some guest writers to fill his Monday spot on Football Morning in America. Today, it’s Kim Pegula, president and co-owner (with husband Terry Pegula) of the Buffalo Bills and the Buffalo Sabres. Previous guest columns: Michael MacCambridge (June 15) • Front-Line Workers (June 22) • Joe [more]
Peter King is on vacation until July 20, and he lined up some guest writers to fill his Monday spot on Football Morning in America. Today, it’s Joe Browne, the all-time longest-serving employee in the NFL office who was honored by the Pro Football Hall of Fame with the Ralph Hay Pioneer Award for his [more]
Peter King is on vacation until July 20, and he lined up some guest writers to fill his Monday spot on Football Morning in America. Today, it’s a collection of front-line workers from the coronavirus pandemic. Previous guest columns: Michael MacCambridge (June 15) Note from Peter King: Today’s column is a bit different—five essays, with [more]
Peter King is on vacation until July 20, and he lined up some guest writers to fill his Monday spot on Football Morning in America. Today, it’s Michael MacCambridge, the author of America’s Game: The Epic Story of How Pro Football Captured A Nation and several other books. By Michael MacCambridge For as long as I can [more]
It’s too early to say that Wednesday, Thursday and Friday were Three Days That Changed the NFL. Action has to follow words. But the seeds are there for change. Those three days produced lots of anger, lots of words, one meaningful F-bomb, lots of vows, one very good video, one incredible cameo by an NBA [more]
BROOKLYN — In 2017 and 2018, when Colin Kaepernick couldn’t find a job because he kneeled in protest during the playing of the national anthem, the refrain inside the league office was clear: Teams are free to hire who they want. We can’t force anyone to sign Colin Kaepernick. This spring, the NFL was faced [more]
For late May, normally a slow time in the NFL, the league’s really busy. A couple of significant rules—adding a full-time Sky Judge to every officiating crew, and revolutionizing the onside kick—will come up for votes in a special videoconference session Thursday. The league last week began directing the opening of team facilities shuttered for [more]
Last month, Matt Rhule gave the speech he’d been preparing, one way or another, since he knew he wanted to be a football coach back in sixth grade, growing up in New York City. Rhule didn’t actually give the speech live, which of course he hoped to do, seeing as it would be the first [more]
Toward the end of a 20-minute telephone interview Saturday evening with America’s COVID-19 expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, I asked a question about testing, and about NFL teams playing football this fall. “Suppose,” I asked, “you test a team of 53 players on a Saturday night and four are positive. Is there a level at which—” [more]
So what’s next? The unknown is what’s next. And the unknowable. In the last month, I’ve tried to explain how different life is in the NFL is these days. A month ago, the NFL was getting used to working at home, with GMs and scouts fumbling with Zoom and stomaching the hard truth that they’d [more]