The Coronavirus Crisis and Sports: March 26, 2020
The National Football League went with a "business as usual" approach with free agency and is continuing to to proceed with the NFL Draft scheduled for this time next month.
Was it a good idea?
The Coronavirus + Sports podcast from Sports Illustrated tackled the subject.
Senior writer @JennyVrentas joined @lmechegaray to talk about the league's approach to both free agency and the draft, and the other offseason issues everyone's facing:
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/id1503391421
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5BWP4CkzC9cknBvc8MFSFj
RSS: https://feeds.megaphone.fm/siplussports
Basketball
Tokyo Olympics Postponement May Affect U.S.A. Men's Basketball
The IOC and Japan announced Tuesday the 2020 Tokyo Olympics would be postponed until 2021. The USA men's basketball team could face some changes due to the delay.
What could get complicated for the NBA is if the Tokyo games take place at the same time next summer. If the NBA calendar is pushed back and the postseason takes place in July/August, teams would probably be more hesitant to take a break and have players compete in competitive games and risk injury.
As of now, neither the 2021 NBA season nor the Tokyo games have an official start date.
March Madness
• Who would have won NCAA tournament? Pat Forde of Sports Illustrated speculated on how he thinks the brackets would have played out. Not surprisingly, he didn't have Alabama in the field, and he had just one SEC team in the Sweet 16.
Meanwhile, Villanova coach Jay Wright discusses the strength of his 2020 team and which squad was better, 2016 or 2018:
On the lighter side ...
• The Yankees are taking advantage of the shutdown in baseball by enjoying their facial hair freedom, Ronald Torreyes has a goatee. Tyler Clippard grew out an ugly chin patch. Michael Pineda started keeping a well-trimmed chinstrap beard. Andrew Miller let his hair and beard go crazy. The list goes on ...
• Thursday was supposed to be Opening Day in Major League Baseball. If you need your fix, MLB has offered free access to 2018 and 2019 games during COVID-19 Pandemic
• Hockey gear company Bauer is switching to making masks that protect health care workers from the coronavirus. Meanwhile, we give you Doc Emrick calling play-by-play of his everyday life.
• The factory that makes Peeps has been forced to close due to the coronavirus.
