Report: NFL & NFLPA At Odds Over Several Key Issues, Including Injury Classification For COVID-19

Could the NFL and NFLPA be heading towards a heated battle that threatens labor peace?

Author:
Dave Holcomb
Publish date:
Jul 16, 2020 9:00 AM EDT

While Major League Baseball saw its owners and players association fight this spring over how to best play a shortened season with significantly less revenue, the NFL avoided any big labor disagreements. But with training camp just a few weeks away, things do not look so rosy for the NFL.

Before any team even plays a snap at practice, the league and players' union must agree on an economic and safety plan for the 2020 season. Right now, the NFL and NFLPA remain divided on several important issues, most notably, how to classify a player who tests positive for coronavirus.

In the league's proposal for this season, COVID-19 is considered a non-football injury. That's an issue for the players because any team who places a player on the non-football injury list is not required to pay that player.

Obviously, players, who are going to take the health risk of playing this season, want the insurance that they will continue to get paid even if they test positive for coronavirus. Other issues in the negotiations this week according to ESPN's Dan Graziano are how often COVID-19 testing takes place, the number of preseason games, financial compensation for players who opt out of the 2020 season for coronavirus reasons and the 2021 salary cap.

Last week, the NFL proposed withholding 35% of player salaries due to the expected hit in revenue from the likelihood of no fans at the games. The players immediately rejected that proposal, but the league has yet to truly respond to the players' counterproposal, which includes daily COVID-19 testing, no preseason games and a guarantee that the 2021 salary cap will not decrease because of lost revenue.

In his report Wednesday, Graziano included another obstacle the league might have to deal with before returning to the field. If states such as Texas, Arizona or California have to close down again because of spikes in the virus, no team is going to be allowed to begin training camp. The NFL and NFLPA agreed that teams must hold training camps at their own team facilities this year, and that if any team cannot open its facility, then no team will be allowed to.