An NFL rule requiring the same helmet for every game (at least the same design of helmet) has hindered the NFL’s marketeers who would like to emulate college football with a stream of alternate uniforms.  The marketeers may be winning.  Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk.com:

The NFL has been considering the possibility of dumping the rule that limits players to one helmet per season. That rule is unpopular for many, because it necessarily prevents teams from using throwback or alternative uniforms based on helmets with a different color than their base helmets.

According to the NFL, there’s still no update on the possible return of multiple helmets for 2021. Even though the issue wasn’t raised at the ownership meetings conducted this week, NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said that this change, if it happens, requires no discussion or vote among ownership.

The issue first emerged last year, when Buccaneers coach Bruce Arians mentioned that the Bucco Bruce throwbacks could return in Tampa for 2021.  Said the league at the time in response to an inquiry sparked by Arians’ comments: “There will be no change for the 2020 season. There are ongoing discussions for a potential change for the 2021 season, but no decisions have been made.”

It’s unclear when a change will need to be made in order to be implemented, if at all, for 2021. For teams like the Buccaneers or the Patriots to take advantage of the opportunity to use a white helmet with old-school uniforms, they’ll need time to get the uniforms ready to go.

Speaking of the possibility for Buccaneers and the Patriots throwbacks, that’s the only thing that could make their heavily-anticipated Week Four showdown in New England more compelling. Bucs in the creamsicles, Pats in the original Pat Patriot gear.

We can recall the Bucs in throwback Creamsicles with the swashbuckling pirate known as Bucco Bruce on the side under the Glazers reign.  When did the one helmet rule come to be and why?  Here is the 2013 memo that imposed the change for “safety” reasons:

Our Head, Neck, and Spine Committee, chaired by Drs. Hunt Batjer and

Richard Ellenbogen, and the Player Safety Advisory Panel, chaired by

John Madden and Ronnie Lott, have recommended that players no longer

wear different helmets as part of a “Throwback” or “Third” uniform.

Our office supports this change and has reviewed it with the chairman of

our Health and Safety ownership committee, Dr. John York, who concurs

with this recommendation.

We have communicated the change to those teams that are planning to

wear throwback uniforms for at least one game this season. Teams may

continue to wear throwback uniforms under league guidelines, but players

must wear their regular helmets. The outside of the helmet can be

modified by removing or replacing decals, as long as it does not affect the

integrity of the helmet.

The committees believe that a cautious approach to the changing of

helmets is an important best practice for player safety.

NFC NORTH

DETROIT

The Lions are moving T PENEI SEWELL to the right side.  Nick Shook of NFL.com:

The selection of Penei Sewell gave the Detroit Lions bookend tackles, but in order to make the bookends work, one is going to have to get used to the other end.

That man will be Sewell, the rookie out of Oregon whose sheer strength, power and explosiveness make him a marvel to witness. He might one day be considered a generational tackle, and ideally, those types play on the left side. Sewell, though, will be playing on the right, an adjustment he’s begun with rookie minicamp and OTAs.

“It is not that easy,” Sewell said Thursday, via the Detroit Free Press. “Man, it’s a whole different feel. Again, it’s like, let’s say I’m right-handed so I’ve been writing right-handed my whole life, and then one day you’re just asked to write your full name left-handed at full speed, the same speed that you write with your right hand. So yeah, it’s a little bit of an adjustment.”

We’ve heard similar statements made by premier rookie tackles in the past and as recently as a year ago, when Iowa’s Tristan Wirfs was being considered by left tackle-needy teams for the position. Wirfs got a little more, um, colorful with how he described the change, saying, “It kind of feels like wiping your butt with your other hand. It just feels a little awkward at first, but you get used to it.”

Fortunately for Wirfs, he didn’t need to spend much time worrying about making the switch because the team that drafted him in the first round, Tampa Bay, kept him on the right side. He ended up proving to be a stellar choice, earning PFWA All-Rookie Team honors and winning a Super Bowl in 2020.

Sewell has already had his immediate future decided for him, and, well, it’s going to take a little bit of time.

“He looks like a rookie,” Lions coach Dan Campbell said. “But he’s a big human being. He looks like what you would think he would look like. Man, he’s got talent, he’s hungry, he’s aggressive. Man, let’s just center back, calm down, watch how everybody does it. Watch the flow, watch your footwork here, take your steps, watch the cadence, listen to these things. Even in three days, you see him improving already. That’s all you can ask for right now. It’s good to have him here and to be with those guys, it’s exactly what you want.”

GREEN BAY

While the Packers go through the offseason program, QB AARON RODGERS has been wandering through the wilds of Hawai’i.

Green Bay Packers QB Aaron Rodgers is having a dramatic offseason, if you haven’t heard. That isn’t stopping him from enjoying a vacation in Hawaii with actress Shailene Woodley (his fiancée), actor Miles Teller and Teller’s wife, Keleigh.

So that’s a vacation with a Sundance nominee, an Emmy and Golden Globe nominee, and a three-time NFL MVP.

Rodgers won the 2020 MVP award after a 48-touchdown season that saw the Packers lose in the NFC Championship Game. That came after the Packers drafted a quarterback in the first round of the 2020 NFL draft. Rodgers hosted “Jeopardy!” this spring and then ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported that Rodgers wanted out of Green Bay.

Rodgers clearly isn’t in Wisconsin this week as the Packers start their offseason program.

Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk.com on the option of a tactical “retirement” for Rodgers:

As the Packers and pretty much everyone else not named Aaron Rodgers try to figure out what Aaron Rodgers will do in 2021, there’s one specific possibility that must be considered.

Rodgers could retire for 2021, and then unretire for 2022.

This isn’t a report or an educated guess or anything meant to indicate what Rodgers actually will do. No one knows what he will do. In the absence of any information about his intentions, speculation will happen, both internally and externally. And one possibility on the radar screen consists of Rodgers walking away from the game in 2021 and then, after the Packers have moved on with Jordan Love or someone else in 2021 and have a plan in place for 2022, returning to it.

It would force their hand, the same way Brett Favre’s return in 2008 did, months after he retired and the Packers pivoted to Rodgers — and drafted Brian Brohm in round two and Matt Flynn in round seven.

Presumably, the Packers would give Jordan Love the chance to become the guy they thought he’d be when they traded up in 2020 to draft him, late in round one. Based on his performance in 2021, the Packers either would be fine with Love or they will have made other plans, through free agency, a trade, or the draft.

From Rodgers’ perspective, the timing of a return would become critical. If he shows up too early, the Packers quite possibly would welcome him back. Beyond a certain point, they won’t want to reinstate his $14.7 million salary, his cap charge, his roster spot.

Rodgers also would be wise not to wait too long. He’ll need a team that will upend its own plans for quarterback in 2022, unless of course there’s a predetermined destination that is unofficially identified, through unofficial communications that technically would constitute tampering.

If, as it appears, Rodgers won’t play for the Packers again and if, as it appears, the Packers won’t be trading him, quitting the game and then coming back once the Packers would be inclined to trade Rodgers becomes a viable option. For now, it’s a potential outcome that can’t be ignored.

Florio reports that Rodgers did not do the slam dunk job of hosting “Jeopardy!” in the eyes of the fans that Rodgers did in the eyes of Rodgers:

Early last month, Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers wisely emerged for a media tour aimed at goosing the ratings for his two-week stint as guest host of Jeopardy! If it helped, it didn’t help enough.

Via Sports Business Journal, Rodgers’ ratings during his two-week run trail those generated by Jeopardy! master contestant Ken Jennings and executive producer Mike Richards. Jennings, in a four-week run, averaged more than 10 million viewers per show for three of his six weeks, and between 9.75 million and 9.9 million for the other three. Richards generated 9.895 million viewers for one of his two weeks, and 9.729 million for the other.

Rodgers attracted 9.193 million viewers per show for his first week and 9.081 million viewers per show for his second week.

Katie Couric’s first week drew more viewers than Rodgers’ second week. Others — Dr. Oz, Bill Whitaker, and Anderson Cooper — landed at 8.51 million viewers per show and lower. The lowest week came from Cooper; for April 26 through April 30, Cooper drew an average of 7.75 million viewers.

Also per SBJ, a CivicScience study published this week shows that 22 percent of Jeopardy! fans want Jennings to be the permanent host, and that 16 percent want Rodgers. The other options are “significantly behind.”

Rodgers has made no secret of his desire to secure the job. The numbers don’t favor him. And, to the extent that the powers-that-be at Jeopardy! are watching his ongoing squabble with Green Bay management, they may not want to find themselves eventually in a similar mess.

Thus, it currently appears that the question that goes with Aaron Rodgers as the successor to Alex Trebek quite likely will be be What is no?

You would think that hosts who draw similar ratings to Rodgers would come with a lower price tag.  $5 million per year might look like a lot of money to Ken Jennings, but not to Rodgers.

Meanwhile, at YahooSports.com, veteran scribe Charles Robinson sees a way that the Packers and Rodgers could mend fences:

Here’s the thing that lingers from that interview: There’s a big difference between a broken relationship and a dead relationship. And when Rodgers wandered through all the things he loved about being a Packer on Monday night — making it about the people, the people, the people — he never definitively declared his relationship with the franchise to be dead. He stayed far from it, criticizing only the “philosophy” of how management treats players and what the franchise plan might have been before his MVP season last year.

That should mean something to the Packers’ brain trust, who had to be uncomfortable not knowing what kind of lob pass Mayne had in store for his friend, perhaps offering up the juiciest question and an opportunity for Rodgers to dunk on general manager Brian Gutekunst or team president Mark Murphy. To his credit, Mayne didn’t let Rodgers off the show without pressing the QB for anything about the impasse. Mayne even interrupted at one point to ask Rodgers point blank if he was seeking a trade. The question was ignored, fueling that one glimmer of hope that the door is still cracked for reconciliation.

That doesn’t always happen in these situations. NFL history is littered with players who tried to burn everything down to get themselves out the door of a franchise. Indeed, even when a split is attempted with a relatively even hand, there is still a definitive moment when you know it’s most likely over.

If we look at the last time NFL agent David Dunn led a high-level quarterback through this kind of minefield, the line was drawn very publicly and very quickly. It featured Dunn — who now represents Rodgers — writing out a statement about Carson Palmer that erased any ambiguity about whether his quarterback client was exiting Cincinnati.

Immediately after Palmer met with Bengals owner Mike Brown in 2011 and told him that he wanted a trade — drawing a hard “no” — Dunn released a statement. He let everyone know exactly what was happening between the two sides: “Because of the lack of success that Carson and the Bengals have experienced together, Carson strongly feels that a separation between him and the Bengals would be in the best interest of both parties.”

Straight to the point. Clear. And right into the hands of the media for deepest possible saturation.

That hasn’t come close to happening with Rodgers and Dunn. It didn’t happen during draft weekend. Nor did it happen in the ensuing weeks, when the Packers kept talking about how Rodgers wasn’t going to be traded, even as more of his displeasure with management became obvious. Most notable, it didn’t happen after nearly a month, when Rodgers was presented with a national stage to air his grievances with a friend on the other end of the dialogue.

Instead, he took some light slaps. He appealed to the kind of thing fans would understand. But he never called in the airstrike that could have significantly advanced a trade push. And a few days later, that’s what lingers.

Of course, that’s not saying it was a good night for the Packers’ front office. Rodgers didn’t shoot down the trade report. And he didn’t walk back virtually anything that has been reported about his issues with management, even addressing the drafting of Jordan Love with a nuanced statement of not having a problem with Love the person or teammate. It was the kind of stuff that wins over some of the public opinion, absorbed by some fans as, “See? He still loves the team.”

Even with the moment of Rodgers talking up seemingly everyone but the team president and general manager, it struck a measured chord. And for the Packers, that’s far better than dropping a hammer — or at least far better than Dunn repeating history with a statement of “Aaron strongly feels that a separation between him and the Packers would be in the best interest of both parties.”

The lack of that moment allows a perturbed star to retain some finite space between “I’m not happy with things” and “I’ll never be happy with things.” And as long as that space exists, a flicker of hope exists.

Maybe this is what former teammates like James Jones and John Kuhn are talking about when they say things are fixable. Maybe they have been waiting for the coup de grâce like everyone else, and just haven’t heard it. Maybe Rodgers has adopted a more measured tact with the draft in the rearview mirror and the remaining trade options looking more dicey than they did in March.

Whatever the reasoning, we’re a month removed from Rodgers’ displeasure being aired out during the first night of the draft and we remain in the same unresolved space. That isn’t great for Green Bay but it isn’t the worst spot, either. At the very least, now everyone has had their opportunity to speak.

Aaron Rodgers hasn’t denied anything. He hasn’t destroyed anything, either. That might be enough to cling to as the Packers seek the right olive branch to resolve this thing.

– – –

T JARED VALHEER will not be able to come out of retirement late in the 2021 season.

Veteran offensive lineman Jared Veldheer said in a statement to NFL Network on Thursday that he plans to retire after he was suspended for six games by the league.

Veldheer, 33, said in a statement to NFL Network that a Clomid prescription resulted in the suspension. He said was taking the medication because of “abnormally low” testosterone, which he suggested was “caused from pituitary damage suffered from repeated blows to the head.”

This will be the second time Veldheer has retired from the NFL. The Green Bay Packers lured him out of retirement in November 2019. He had retired earlier that year after signing with the New England Patriots.

He finished last season with the Packers, who signed him off the Indianapolis Colts’ practice squad during the playoffs. He had started at left tackle for the Colts in their wild-card playoff loss to the Buffalo Bills and had a chance to become the first player to play for two different teams in the same postseason but tested positive for COVID-19, preventing any appearance for Green Bay.

Veldheer was in his second stint with the Packers. He started for Green Bay at right tackle in the NFC divisional playoff victory over the Seattle Seahawks the previous year after Bryan Bulaga became ill before the game.

He entered the NFL as a third-round draft choice of the Oakland Raiders out of Division II Hillsdale College, playing in 121 regular-season games (114 starts) for the Raiders (2010-2013), Arizona Cardinals (2014-2017), Denver Broncos (2018), Packers (2019) and Colts (2020).

NFC EAST

PHILADELPHIA

The Eagles trump the Broncos (at least if you assume giving someone a Vice President title beats an Executive Director).  Tim McManus of ESPN.com:

The Eagles announced changes to their football operations department Thursday, including a historic one — the promotion of Catherine Raiche to vice president of football operations.

It’s believed Raiche is now the highest-ranking female personnel executive in NFL history. That title was previously held by Kelly Kleine, who was named executive director of football operations and special adviser to general manager George Paton by the Denver Broncos earlier this month.

A Montreal native, Raiche spent five years in the Canadian Football League, most recently as the director of football operations for the Toronto Argonauts, before joining the Eagles in 2019 as their football operations/player personnel coordinator. In her new role, she will be involved in pro and college scouting, contract management, player/staff development and football research.

Philadelphia also added former Jacksonville general manager Dave Caldwell as a personnel executive. Caldwell was the Jaguars’ GM from 2013 to 2020. He will assist with the pro and college scouting and will contribute to the evaluation of the Eagles squad.

Among other moves, the Eagles promoted Brandon Brown and Ian Cunningham to director of player personnel, named Jeff Scott — formerly a member of the Washington Football Team’s personnel department — to senior pro scout, and promoted Ameena Soliman from player personnel coordinator to pro scout.

We get it that she is part of ownership, but Katie Blackburn of the Bengals has had a bigger role than either Kleine or Raiche in her franchise for many years now, but she never gets mentioned.

NFC SOUTH

ATLANTA

Tori McElhaney of The Athletic on what a trade for WR JULIO JONES might look like:

It is difficult to think the Falcons and Julio Jones can reconcile after what has transpired between the two this week. Jones has made it clear he wants out of Atlanta, and the Falcons are actively shopping their star wide receiver. With that in mind, what are the Falcons looking for? And if they can’t get it, what will they settle for and what offers would they pass on?

Let’s take a quick look at the options, and the contenders.

The ideal choice

In the Falcons’ perfect world, a trade partner will:

1. Offer a first-round pick (the Falcons would prefer a 2022 pick) and …

2. Take on all of Jones’ 2021 base salary. Maybe there’s a player thrown in there as well, but those two points are the most important.

If this is offered by any team, Atlanta wouldn’t be able to pass it up. It’s a deal that would knock general manager Terry Fontenot’s socks off, something he said needed to happen before the draft for the Falcons to trade away their No. 4 pick (something that didn’t happen).

He likely has entered into Jones’ trade negotiations with the same mindset. But is “ideal” realistic for the Falcons and another team in this situation? That’s the question. Jones is older now and coming off a hamstring injury. His cap hit isn’t an easy workaround for teams, either. Only a handful of organizations have the means to take on Jones’ base salary in full. Is a first-round pick, no-salary-strings-attached deal something a team would offer for Jones? When he’s a healthy Julio Jones, absolutely.

The settlement

This is the trade package that is most likely and realistic. In this situation, the Falcons get a second-round pick and a player who could come in and help now, and the team acquiring Jones would take care of most of his base salary. This package could take many forms.

For starters, a team could offer a conditional second-round pick, hinging on how much Jones sees the field in 2021. This was a popular choice for The Athletic’s beat reporters in a recent trade simulation. Some offered conditional second- or third-round picks, depending on the season Jones had. Then, there’s the addition of a player, or even two, to sweeten the pot for Atlanta if the Falcons have to take on a small portion of Jones’ base salary. The Falcons could use more help in the secondary. Some names that have been thrown about are J.C. Jackson or N’Keal Harry of the Patriots (as Jeff Howe recently suggested). If the Ravens make room for Jones, Jeff Zrebiec thought receiver Miles Boykin could be on the table.

Finally, there’s Jones’ base salary to consider. David Lombardi noted the 49ers could be contenders for Jones considering Kyle Shanahan’s comments on potentially acquiring Jones in the past, but the Falcons would have to pick up some of that base salary to make a deal with San Francisco work. So, for example, if the Falcons agree to pay $5 million of Jones’ $15.3 million base salary, that would be included toward the cap as well as Jones’ $7.75 million dead money hit. Atlanta could do this and still have the money to sign its draft class with a Grady Jarrett extension or contract restructure, but the Atlanta front office will have to stand firm on not wanting to pay too much of that base salary.

If they can’t make that happen and feel this type of deal is the best bet, that puts pressure back on a Jarrett deal so the Falcons could make sure they have the money to sign their 2021 draft class and any potential players in a Jones trade.

The hard no

Though we didn’t see much of Jones in 2020, this is still Julio Jones on the table. And the Falcons believe a trade deal should reflect the player Jones is (i.e., a potential Hall of Famer), regardless of what 2020 looked like for him.

With that in mind, don’t expect the Falcons to accept a deal with:

1. A third or fourth-round pick. They want a first-rounder preferably and will settle for a second.

2. A player who can’t help out immediately. The Falcons are not in the position depth-wise to get a player who may flop.

3. A team asking them to take on too much of Jones’ base salary. Atlanta simply can’t afford to do that.

There is a way for the Falcons to keep Jones on the roster. The salary cap would be a menace to work around, but crazier things have happened. So, even with Jones going on “Undisputed” and making it clear he wants out of Atlanta, that doesn’t mean the Falcons have to give Jones away at the first sign of a potential offer. They have to get the deal they believe is worthy of a player like Jones. If they don’t get it, they’re not going to strike it.

The contenders

As time goes on and money and options are weighed, it seems like the Patriots, 49ers, Chargers and maybe even the Ravens are the top four contenders. Some have thrown out the Titans, Raiders and Colts as options, too. But with Jones, the cap hit may cause some teams to bow out. And those three teams may be the long shots.

The public (or more precisely, the ardent betting public) thinks the Patriots are the favorites to land Jones.  Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk.com:

The markets are moving.

After just a few days, the Patriots have rocketed to the top of the odds for the next Julio Jones destination. The PointsBet sports book has moved the Patriots from +700 to +150, making them the current favorites to land the Falcons receiver.

The Titans likewise have surged, from +1000 to +200.

The 49ers have fallen from the +450 favorite to +500. The Rams, which have neither the cap space nor the draft picks to easily pull it off, have landed at +500 as well.

The Colts, recently +475, are down to +800. Ditto for the Chargers, who also have slid to +800 from +475.

Baltimore and Jacksonville come in at +900.

The window opens, as a practical matter, for a Julio Jones trade on Wednesday, June 2. The biggest questions are the trade compensation the Falcons will receive, and whether and to what extent Atlanta will have to pay any of Jones’ $15.3 million base salary for 2021 in order to get a deal done.

TAMPA BAY

DC Todd Bowles says having the same players back is NOT having the same team back.  Grant Gordon of NFL.com:

For Bucs defensive coordinator Todd Bowles, though, between that Super Bowl win and the 2021 opener, much will have changed, even if the names are all the same.

“Even with 22 [starters returning], it’s still a different team. It’s a different team,” Bowles said Thursday, via team transcript. “We tweaked some things for us to get better at. We know some things that hurt us. As a team, we have to re-jell, re-do our chemistry and everything else to try to get better from there and start from the bottom up. I think if you go into the season saying that we’re top dog, we’ve already lost. We’re starting at the bottom and we’re going to work our way back up.”

Bowles was the architect of a stellar, though often-overshadowed, Buccaneers championship-winning defense last season.

He was also part of a championship-winning defense with Washington in 1987. While that squad rolled to a Super Bowl XXII win over the Denver Broncos, Washington struggled to a 7-9 campaign the ensuing season and missed out on a return trip to the playoffs, much less a repeat as champs.

Can Bowles draw from that experience to aid the Bucs? He doesn’t think so. Washington’s demise came about due to injuries in his view. For Tampa Bay to rise once more, he’s steadfast in the belief that the Bucs must start over again as the 2021 Buccaneers and not the 2020 version, no matter how successful that bunch was.

“I don’t think anything can help us — we had a lot of injuries the year after that. I think we ended the season with only three defensive starters playing,” Bowles said. “But I don’t think we can go back to last year. We have to go forward to this year.”

– – –

The Match 4 is going to be held in Montana in July as Phil Mickelson and QB TOM BRADY return against a timely tandem. This from TheLines.com says they are underdogs against QB AARON RODGERS and Bryson DeChambeau:

After two wildly successful editions of The Match, Tom Brady and Phil Mickelson will team up on the course again. The duo faces a pairing of Aaron Rodgers and Bryson DeChambeau in the fourth overall edition of The Match.

Mickelson is 2-1 all time in golf exhibition. The first go-around featured a head-to-head matchup between Mickelson and Tiger Woods in 2018, with Mickelson winning after four playoff holes and taking home the $9 million prize purse.

A second edition added Peyton Manning (partnered with Woods) and Brady (partnered with Mickelson) in May 2020, where Woods and Manning won by a single hole. The winnings from Part 2 were donated to COVID-19 relief. Part 3 saw Mickelson and Charles Barkley take on Manning and Stephen Curry in November 2020, where Mickelson again won.

The Match 4 is slated for July 6.

The Rodgers and DeChambeau pair are -160 opening favorites at DraftKings Sportsbook, with Mickelson and Brady being listed at +140 underdogs. That’s an implied probability of 61.5% the DeChambeau pairing will win.

One casino in Las Vegas sees it differently. Stations Casino opened Mickelson and Brady as -130 favorites, with Rodgers and DeChambeau +110 underdogs.

Coming off a historic PGA Championship victory, Mickelson moved up the World Golf Rankings to 32nd, catapulting up from 115th before the win. DeChambeau, on the other hand, is ranked fourth (up from fifth before the Championship). The course at hand– Moonlight Basin in Big Sky, Montana– benefits DeChambeau’s driving at high altitude.

Tom Brady has an official handicap of 8.1, according to Golf.com. While that’s good for pedestrian golfers, Aaron Rodgers has an official handicap of 4.6, according to USGA, though Rodgers said in aGolf.com interview that his best is a 3.5. For reference, notoriously excellent golfer Tony Romo carries a 0.4.

When comparing the numbers, it’s no surprise that Rodgers and DeChambeau are favored.

However, as both halves of the Brady-Mickelson pair have proved in just the last four months, it’s that neither of them should be counted out. Tom Brady is coming off his record-extending seventh Super Bowl victory and Mickelson that PGA Championship victory.

THE MATCH IV INFORMATION

Who: Tom Brady and Phil Mickelson vs. Aaron Rodgers and Bryson DeChambeau

Where: Moonlight Basin, Big Sky, Montana

When: July 6, 2021

How to Watch: TNT

THIS AND THAT

To the DB, there is something special about having a pair of well-made, well-designed, well-printed tickets in your pocket as you head to the big game.  Well, in the NFL, forget about it per Daniel Kaplan of The Athletic:

The NFL expects full stadiums in the fall, 30 of 32 teams already communicating they will accept 100 percent of capacity, a far cry from the pandemic-stricken 2020 season. But one thing that is not coming back with the fans is physical tickets.

During the pandemic, all leagues largely shifted to mobile ticketing to reduce person-to-person contact, but the NFL appears to be the first to carry that policy through as mandatory.

“There are so many fan-friendly benefits that come with mobile ticketing,” Peter O’Reilly, the NFL’s executive vice president of events, said this week. “The ability to know who is in that seat, communicate with them in the lead-up, kind of really builds the communication before and after the game. So I think mobile ticketing across the NFL and probably across the entertainment industry is here to stay. And that’s a good thing.”

DB aside – We would say O’Reilly’s benefits are “team-friendly” not really “fan-friendly.”

In 2019, the year before the pandemic, about half the NFL’s on-average 17 million in-stadium attendees used mobile ticketing, a number that had quickly jumped from previous years. Going digital allows teams to track secondary ticket sales, communicate event information, know better who is in the seat and, of course, advertise.

“What COVID has done for them, it has given them the perfect accelerant for mobile ticketing,” said Tony Knopp, co-founder of TicketManager, which helps companies manage tickets. “If the NFL trailblazes here and shows that it’s doable, safe, easy, they don’t get sued for it, then yeah, all the other leagues are going to follow because it’s in their best interest to have mobile ticketing.”

There are, however, privacy concerns with mandating mobile phone use for stadium entry, and even equity issues for low-income fans who might not have phones or have data caps. Susan Grant, director of consumer protection and privacy at the Consumer Federation of America, laughed in response to a question about the COVID-19 rationale for going to mobile ticketing.

COVID-19 spreads not on surfaces like tickets, she said, but through the air. That is more likely to happen in packed stadiums than because of handing over tickets, she said.

The share of Americans that own a smartphone is 85 percent, up from just 35 percent in 2011, according to the  Pew Research Center. Teams that in the past went fully mobile on ticketing did offer a will-call pickup choice. But Grant said it’s not just about having a phone but wanting to use it as a ticket.

“The policy is really exclusionary at a time when there’s heightened sensitivity for the need to be inclusive of people of all economic and social backgrounds and at a time when issues like privacy are really coming to the fore,” she said. “This seems a tone-deaf move on the part of the NFL.

“Not only doesn’t everybody have a smartphone, but not everybody who has a smartphone wants to use their phone in that way. There are still lots of people even with smartphones who basically mainly want to use their phones to make and receive calls. They don’t necessarily want somebody like the NFL sharing their information, to have their smartphone numbers (and) email addresses in order to bombard them with advertising.”

Grant recommended the NFL revert to its old policy of voluntary use like airlines employ. That, though, seems unlikely not just for the NFL, but in the future of all entertainment.

Joe Berchtold, president of the LiveNation events/concerts company, told CNBC this week: “I think we are going to see a big shift to digital ticketing. We saw that in the past year where the NFL went from 50 percent or so digital ticketing to 100 percent digital ticketing. We think that unlocks some big advantages for the fans and their experience — how they can manage the tickets, send them to friends and others they are coming with, the ability to order and pick up their food — not having to wait in line. So we think that we will be able to deploy some technology, because of this, that will enhance the fan experience.”

One area NFL is not dictating mobile phone use is ordering concession. Here the league is planning more of a return to normalcy, as guided by local health regulations. The Atlanta Falcons famously went cashless at their stadium, accepting only cards and phone payment apps. The NFL is not mandating that for other teams but notes many may do so.