Revamped CBA Paves Way for Training Camp to Start Tuesday
GREEN BAY, Wis. – Labor negotiations are never easy. With that said, the easy part is done and the final roadblock to the start of NFL training camps has been cleared.
League management and the NFLPA agreed on Friday to a revised collective bargaining agreement that clears the way for the Green Bay Packers to begin training camp, as scheduled, on Tuesday.
“Our NFLPA Board of Representatives voted to adopt, by a count of 29-3, the proposed amendments to the 2020 Collective Bargaining Agreement to protect our players’ health, safety and financial well-being,” the NFL’s players union said on Friday afternoon
A few hours earlier, team owners approved the CBA in a conference call.
“We have worked collaboratively to develop a comprehensive set of protocols designed to minimize risk for fans, players, and club and league personnel,” Commissioner Roger Goodell said in a statement. “These plans have been guided by the medical directors of the NFL and the NFLPA and have been reviewed and endorsed by independent medical and public health experts, including the CDC, and many state and local public health officials. The season will undoubtedly present new and additional challenges, but we are committed to playing a safe and complete 2020 season, culminating with the Super Bowl.”
What does that mean for Packers coach Matt LaFleur? As is the case for all but Kansas City and Houston, which are scheduled to play in the traditional Thursday night opener, the Packers will report to training camp on Tuesday. Here’s the schedule, as outlined by SI.com’s Albert Breer:
Day 1 (July 28): Testing/virtual meetings.
Days 2-3 (July 29-30): Virtual meetings.
Day 4 (July 31): Testing/virtual meetings.
Days 5-6 (Aug. 1-2): Physicals.
Days 7-15 (Aug. 3 through Aug. 11): Strength and conditioning (with a day off.)
Day 16 (Aug. 12): Practice starts.
Day 18 (Aug. 14): Players can practice with helmets.
Day 21 (Aug. 17): First padded practice.
According to Breer, that nine-day stretch of strength-and-conditioning days can include walk-through periods. Those will be critical, especially for the rookies, because the pandemic wiped out the offseason practices. The NFL had already agreed to scrap the preseason, so there will be almost a month – but no exhibition games – to get ready for the Sept. 13 opener at Minnesota.
The roadmap to the regular season has been plotted but can the teams and players get there safely amid the COVID-19 pandemic? For as difficult as the negotiations were, they should be child’s play compared to keeping players and staff safe in a sport in which social distancing is highly frowned upon.
With teams set to play games in front of drastically reduced crowds or perhaps no crowds at all – Packers President/CEO Mark Murphy suggested 10,000 to 12,000 fans at Lambeau Field – the league felt a budget crunch. According to reports, the salary cap for 2020 will remain unchanged at $198.2 million. Lowering this year’s cap would have created chaos for teams, which have budgeted for their 90-man rosters, and veterans, who would have been asked to take pay cuts or face outright releases.
Instead, NFL teams will “borrow” against future caps through 2024. In 2021, the two sides agreed to a cap of no less than $175 million.
Beyond economics, another point of contention was how the league would handle players who decided to not play this season because of health and safety concerns. According to the Washington Post’s Mark Maske: “The settlement includes a two-tiered plan allowing players to opt out of playing this season. Players can opt out by a certain date and receive a stipend; there is a separate medically supported plan for opt-outs for players with health risks.”
Here are the details from NFL Media's Tom Pelissero:
While Murphy said he would have played through a pandemic, he understood and supported players who choose to sit out the season.
“If people – players or staff – aren’t comfortable returning to work, absolutely they should have the right to opt out,” Murphy said following Thursday’s shareholders meeting. “We’ve had a number of our employees who have continued to work from home. In terms of the players, if a player is uncomfortable working for whatever reason or coming back and playing under these circumstances, absolutely they could opt out. I don’t anticipate that there’ll be large numbers, but we’ll see.”
Murphy suggested practice squads, which included 10 players last year, would be increased to 16 players per team. That indeed is the case. Also according to Maske, four of those players could be protected weekly from being acquired by another team willing to promote that player to the active roster.
Finally, while there had been talk of cutting rosters from 90 players to 80 for the start of camp, that's not exactly the case. As Breer reported on Saturday, teams have two options. One, they can cut to 80 players before Tuesday. Or, they keep 90 and go with split-roster practices until Aug. 16. The roster would be split between rookies, first-year and rehab players in one group and everyone else in the other. The Packers have two practice fields, so they could pull that off, though that would require splitting up the coaching staff, as well.
