Daily Briefing

AROUND THE NFL Daily Briefing NFC EAST   DALLAS While the WFT goes with an empty stadium, the Cowboys think they will have fans next month at Jerry World.  Josh Alper of ProFootballTalk.com: Cowboys owner Jerry Jones has been silent for much of the offseason, but he held a video conference with reporters on Wednesday…

AROUND THE NFL Daily Briefing Peter King has a long look at Texans training camp in the age of Wuhan Covid-19 precautions.  Here is the part on how Coach Bill O’Brien gets from the parking lot to his office: 5:23 a.m. “Good morning,” the yellow-shirted medical technician says to O’Brien as he stops his car…

AROUND THE NFL Daily Briefing Peter King has a long look at Texans training camp in the age of Wuhan Covid-19 precautions.  Here is the part on how Coach Bill O’Brien gets from the parking lot to his office: 5:23 a.m. “Good morning,” the yellow-shirted medical technician says to O’Brien as he stops his car…

AROUND THE NFL Daily Briefing And the final number is 66 – about two per team – opting out of NFL 2020.  Charean Williams of ProFootballTalk.com: The deadline for players to opt out for 2020 passed at 4 p.m. ET Thursday. A total of 66 players took the option to sit out the season.  …

AROUND THE NFL Daily Briefing So if a player feels that his team is not looking out for his welfare according to the negotiated protocol, he now has two choices.  Confront his club directly and respectfully – or send an anonymous text on a special NFLPA snitch line.  Grant Gordon of NFL.com: In the interest…

AROUND THE NFL Daily Briefing NFC NORTH DETROIT QB MATHEW STAFFORD is removed from the Covid-19 List.  Kevin Patra of NFL.com: Matthew Stafford did not test positive for COVID-19 after all.   The Detroit Lions announced Tuesday that the starting quarterback had a false-positive test that forced him onto the reserve/COVID-19 list on Saturday. Detroit…

AROUND THE NFL Daily Briefing The NFLPA agrees to a time certain for the opt outs, even as lawyers haggle over the final details of the revised CBA.  By 4 p.m. Thursday, we should know who is up for the challenges of 2020 NFL football.  Dan Graziano of ESPN.com: The deadline for NFL players to…

AROUND THE NFL Daily Briefing The NFL sees some gamesmanship around the issue of opt outs.  Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk.com: The NFL reportedly wants to shorten the deadline for opting out. The desire to give players less time to decide on playing in 2020 comes from at least two specific concerns.   As one source…

AROUND THE NFL Daily Briefing We may have a signed deal by nightfall.  Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk.com: One week ago, the NFL and NFL Players Association worked out an agreement on a revised Collective Bargaining Agreement that accommodates pro football in a pandemic. As of this moment, the formal paperwork still hasn’t been finalized.  …

AROUND THE NFL Daily Briefing A pretty good primer on the on-going opt-out program from The Sporting News: The NFL season opt-out rules are simple. Anybody is free to decide not to play in 2020, and per multiple reports, the contracts for all players who opt out will toll to 2021.   NFL players who…

AROUND THE NFL Daily Briefing NFC NORTH DETROIT The biggest book in Lions camp is the team’s Wuhan Covid-19 protocol.  Michael David Smith of ProFootballTalk.com: These are unusual times for everyone, and NFL teams are no exception. And Lions General Manager Bob Quinn illustrated that in describing how the team has prepared its facility for…

AROUND THE NFL Daily Briefing Charles Robinson of YahooSports.com says the NFL won’t run afoul of as many problems as MLB. Major League Baseball was the canary in the coal mine.   If something was capable of going sideways for a league operating without a bubble during the COVID-19 pandemic, baseball would send a warning…