Tretter's Endorsement of Browns Safety Protocols Important
J.C. Tretter endorsed the precautions and safeguards of the Cleveland Browns in their facility in a conference call on Wednesday. Given that he's the President of the NFLPA and fought and got most everything the union wanted in terms of protocols, this is important and bodes well for the NFL.
“The Browns have done a really great job. Walking through the facility, it is like a new building. The weight room is no longer where it originally was. The weight room has turned into a second locker room for us. That way we have the ability to spread out and make sure that we can continue social distancing, even in the locker room. The weight room is now out in the field house. The upstairs where the staff was, new walls have been put up. It has been completely rebuilt to add additional meeting rooms to allow social distancing in meetings. They have done everything you could possibly think of. Walking through there, there is nothing I can look at and say, ‘Well, maybe they could have done this.’ They have done a great job.”
The owners initially resisted, but largely gave the players everything they wanted to get the deal done. At the very least, this is good news for the Browns, but if this is common throughout the league, it's a good sign for the health of the league.
It doesn't come off as Tretter going along for the sake of saying his team is doing well either, since if the protocols fail, it's going to reflect poorly on him. If players aren't careful and contract COVID-19 due to irresponsible behavior off the field, like members of the Miami Marlins and St. Louis Cardinals in Major League Baseball, it's a different story. If the protocols in facilities fail that he led the fight for, it may suggest it's just not feasible to have an NFL season.
To this point, there have been positive results, but there hasn't been anything that really amounts to be an outbreak. The Buffalo Bills had some rookies test positive and they simply sent them home. Overall, the infection rate has been relatively low.
The first two weeks, players test everyday and after two weeks, there's a baseline level of percent. Infected players will keep testing everyday but if the overall roster is below five percent, they test every other day.
The union expressed a number of concerns about the approach and seriousness of NFL teams. They used social media to get the message out, which seemed to be reasonably effective.
The situation could change and perhaps some teams will have issues that come from their respective player reps, but that has yet to surface. Tretter's endorsement is important, but testing results are going to be the true indication of how viable and NFL season is.
