The Chiefs are in Good Hands as the NFL Adapts to COVID-Changed World
Fans of football were dismayed late last week when news broke that the league and the NFL Players Association had yet to agree on several major issues critical to football being played this fall — including the manner and frequency of COVID-19 testing. The dismay reached its zenith late Sunday morning when several prominent players launched a coordinated social media blitz against the league under the hashtag #WeWantToPlay, among them the Chiefs' own Patrick Mahomes:
While fans fretted, the staff at 1 Arrowhead Drive kept their cool. The Chiefs, still scheduled to open the season on Thursday, September 10, were one of the first teams to report to training camp, along with their opponent, the Houston Texans.
They were ready.
As of Sunday night, the Chiefs were one of just three NFL teams to have their Infectious Disease Emergency Response (IDER) plan approved by the NFLPA. The Washington Post's Mark Maske earlier reported that every team's IDER had been approved by Allen Sills, the NFL's chief medical officer, but each IDER required approval from the players themselves, too. The Chiefs were one of the first teams to get that done.
The Chiefs made a pitch to the league last month for permission to hold training camp on the Missouri Western State campus in St. Joseph, as they have for the past decade. The proposal was denied, as the league ordered all 32 teams to conduct training camp at their home facilities. That meant the Chiefs — who have never conducted training camp at Arrowhead in their 60-year history, and are one of just 10 teams, as of last year, that still traveled to training camp — would have to adapt.
But Andy Reid's Chiefs are nothing if not adaptable. We learned Monday that the Chiefs are not only ready to have camp at Arrowhead, they're practically giddy about it. Reid called the set-up "phenomenal." The Chiefs will divide Arrowhead into zones for the offense and defense and have monitors set up for the coaching staff. While the league and players union continue to negotiate the ramp-up period to padded practices, Reid has remained flexible, planning for at least 10 days of conditioning before getting into any on-field work.
The Chiefs can afford to play this safe. Yes, they will be the first team to take the field in what promises to be the strangest season in the NFL's long history. But with Chris Jones now under contract, they return 20 of 22 starters from Super Bowl LIV, as well as their entire coaching staff. They won't require the same reps that a team in transition might. They can err on the side of caution — and health.
Reid is a football coach, not an epidemiologist. But it's obvious that he understands the importance of preventing a COVID outbreak in the locker room.
“There’s a responsibility for coaches and players to make sure that we handle ourselves right when we’re away from it," Reid said to the media on Monday. "We’ll have our masks, wash our hands and do all of the things that we should. We’ll do all of the fundamental things and stay on top of it."
Meanwhile, in the front office, Brett Veach and his team aren't taking a victory lap, though certainly, after turning $177 in cap space into approximately $600 million in extensions for Jones and Mahomes, plus new contracts for Bashaud Breeland, Mike Pennel, Sammy Watkins, and the 2020 draft class, they deserve to. With a dire rumor circulating at the end of last week that the salary cap could drop $70 million in 2021, Veach was asked Monday about that possibility. Perhaps he was putting on his best poker face, but he did not seem overly concerned.
"We don't know where the cap is going to be, but we have to have plans ready in place whether it grows, whether it stays the same, whether it dips, and what levels," Veach said.
Veach indicated that his team was "comfortable" with their cap situation for the next few years — and barring a catastrophic drop in the 2021 cap number, they should be. The Chiefs have a team of superstars locked up on very reasonable terms for the next couple of seasons, betting on still-to-come TV deals pushing the cap way, way up in 2023 and beyond to accommodate the latter part Mahomes' $503 million megadeal. Veach even managed to keep $1.5 million in the piggy bank in case of emergency — a prudent strategy that last year paid for the mid-season acquisitions of Pennel and Terrell Suggs.
The Chiefs won their first Super Bowl in 50 years in February. They locked up the best player in football to the richest contract in sports history earlier this month. But they are not content to rest on their laurels. In an offseason of unprecedented adversity for the entire league, they have risen to the challenge. From the front office, to the coaching staff, to the IT department, to the medical personnel, to the players themselves, this is an organization ready to win another championship.
