After the release of the 2020 schedule, an effort was made to match the three California teams with alternate locations, if NFL games can’t be played in the Golden State this season, or if games can’t be played with paying customers there — but can be played with fans present elsewhere.

The 49ers and Cardinals could share the Arizona venue with no conflicts at all. The Chargers and Raiders could share the new Las Vegas Stadium with only one potential conflict. Ditto for the Rams and the Cowboys.

As it turns out, Las Vegas also could potentially absorb the Rams, too. Vincent Bonsignore of the Las Vegas Review-Journal addresses the possibility. A Raiders official declined comment to Bonsignore on the possibility, which is understandable given the NFL’s recent edict to avoid discussing hypotheticals regarding the 2020 season.

Said Rams COO Kevin Demoff: “Our sole focus is on playing at SoFi Stadium, hopefully in front of our fans.”

If both the Rams and Chargers were to play in Las Vegas, the Rams would open the stadium in Week One with a game against the Cowboys. The Chargers would play there the following Sunday, before the Raiders get a chance to break in their new building with a Monday night game against the Saints.

The Raiders and Rams would have a Week Four Sunday conflict. One of the games would have to be moved to Monday night, like the NFL did from time to time when football and baseball teams shared stadiums and the baseball team had a Sunday home game in the postseason.

Ditto for Week 10, when the Raiders are due to host the Broncos and the Rams host the Seahawks on the same day.

In Week 14, the Raiders and Chargers also would have a same-day conflict.

Otherwise, the schedules for the three teams would mesh. Which makes Las Vegas a potential home away from home for both L.A. teams.

Whether the NFL wants three teams playing in one stadium is a different issue. If the stadiums outside California are open to fans, the Las Vegas market’s first year as an NFL venue would see it saturated with 48 regular-season games. That could make the NFL inclined to put two teams in two markets instead of loading three into one.

Regardless, it won’t be hard to play a game of stadium shuffle if California isn’t open for NFL business, or if California won’t allow fans to attend games and other states will.

– – –

The NFL is seeking a system between the utter failure in the 2018 NFC Championship Game and the utter failure of an Al Riveron administered replay review.  Mike Florio ofProFootballTalk.com:

Replay review for pass interference is dead. That’s been firmly established.

But here’s the lingering question: What will the league use to avoid another Rams-Saints NFC Championship debacle?

“There’s options that we’re going to be reviewing,” Cowboys exec and Competition Committee member Stephen Jones told #PFTPM on Friday. “[W]hat we don’t want to do is make a decision that does have unintended consequences that aren’t in the best interest of the game. We know we got a great game. . . . There’s certainly some solutions that I think moving forward can make our game better. We’ll focus on those. We’ll hopefully get into a situation sooner than later where we can continue business as usual in the future where can really vet these and vet all the unintended consequences that may come along with these solutions.”

The owners will meet in virtual fashion on May 19. At that time they definitely won’t be extending replay review for pass interference for another year, and Jones is OK with that.

“I’m certainly on board that we needed to move away from what we did last year,” Jones said. “These officials do a great job. They’re not gonna be perfect. This game’s fast moving. But overall they do a great job. We need to support them. Hopefully, we won’t have that type of situation again but we will look at solutions moving forward.”

Absent something like Sky Judge or a similar device for fixing an egregious error immediately, the league will be running the risk of another horrible outcome that creates a major controversy. With legalized gambling spreading (the spread could accelerate as the various states try to rebuild their budgets post-pandemic), the next bad-call controversy could be the one that prompts politicians to do political things, and/or prosecutors to do prosecutorial things. So it’s in the league’s best interest to have a system that works.

The last system didn’t. While some blame execution of the replay-review function when it comes to interference calls, Jones said he thinks that the concept simply doesn’t work when it comes to pass interference.

“It’s just the subjectivity that comes with what is what isn’t pass interference and being consistent with it,” Jones said. “I think that’s the hard part is the consistency that every coach wants, that our owners want, that our fans want. Everyone wants consistency. These guys are great athletes. There’s a lot of hand fighting on every play. I think our fans like to see our players play. They don’t want to see a lot of flags. I just think it was very difficult on judgment calls to really get down and have that be part of replay.”

Whatever the reason, the one-year experiment didn’t work. Soon, we’ll find out whether the NFL will have a new experiment, or whether the league will simply hope that there’s no repeat of Rams-Saints until the folks charged with making these decisions have retired.

MINNESOTA

Peter King with a QB KIRK COUSINS quote:

“I believe the franchise tag can be your friend.”

—Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins, who has used the friendship of the franchise tag to be a top-five earner in the NFL over the past five years.

DALLAS

Sun Sep. 13             at Los Angeles Rams             8:20pm ET         NBC

Sun Sep. 20             Atlanta Falcons                      1:00pm ET         FOX

Sun Sep. 27             at Seattle Seahawks              4:25pm ET         FOX

Sun Oct. 4               Cleveland Browns                  1:00pm ET         FOX

Sun Oct. 11             New York Giants                    4:25pm ET         CBS

Mon Oct. 19             Arizona Cardinals                  8:15pm ET         ESPN

Sun Oct. 25              at Washington Redskins        1:00pm ET         FOX

Sun Nov. 1               at Philadelphia Eagles           8:20pm ET         NBC

Sun Nov. 8               Pittsburgh Steelers                4:25pm ET         CBS

Sun Nov. 15             BYE

Sun Nov. 22             at Minnesota Vikings             4:25pm ET          FOX

Thurs Nov. 26          Washington Redskins           4:30pm ET           FOX

Thurs Dec. 3            at Baltimore Ravens              8:20pm ET         FOX/NFLN/Amazon

Sun Dec. 13             at Cincinnati Bengals             1:00pm ET        FOX

Sun Dec. 20             San Francisco 49ers              8:20pm ET        NBC

Sun Dec. 27             Philadelphia Eagles               4:25pm ET        FOX

Sun Jan. 3                at New York Giants               1:00pm ET        FOX

SCHEDULE THOUGHTS

They have not appeared in an NFC Championship Game (much less a Super Bowl) in 25 years, but, in a true testament to branding, Dallas continues to get the royal treatment in the schedule (and no one really objects)…In 2020, that means five primetime games (three in the Sunday package), 6 national late games (Thanksgiving and two on CBS)…And Week 17 could go late…The good news is they don’t open with the Giants and don’t play them until week five in a late game given to CBS…LockDown Governor permitting, they open the new Los Angeles Stadium on NBC…Dallas at Baltimore the week after Thanksgiving is a big get for FOX’s Thursday night package…Nothing too exciting about the home-away mix or divisional distribution.

NEW YORK GIANTS

Mon Sep. 14             Pittsburgh Steelers                7:15pm ET       ESPN

Sun Sep. 20              at Chicago Bears                   1:00pm ET       CBS

Sun Sep. 27              San Francisco 49ers             1:00pm ET        FOX

Sun Oct. 4                 at Los Angeles Rams            4:05pm ET        FOX

Sun Oct. 11              at Dallas Cowboys                 4:25pm ET        CBS

Sun Oct. 18               Washington Redskins            1:00pm ET       FOX

Thurs Oct. 22            at Philadelphia Eagles           8:20pm ET       FOX/NFLN/Amazon

Mon Nov. 2               Tampa Bay Buccaneers        8:15pm ET       ESPN

Sun Nov. 8                at Washington Redskins       1:00pm ET        FOX

Sun Nov. 15              Philadelphia Eagles              1:00pm ET        FOX

Sun Nov. 22              BYE

Sun Nov. 29              at Cincinnati Bengals             1:00pm ET       FOX

Sun Dec. 6                at Seattle Seahawks              4:05pm ET       FOX

Sun Dec. 13              Arizona Cardinals                  1:00pm ET       FOX

Sun Dec. 20              Cleveland Browns                  1:00pm ET      CBS

Sun Dec. 27              at Baltimore Ravens               1:00pm ET      FOX

Sun Jan. 3                 Dallas Cowboys                     1:00pm ET      FOX

SCHEDULE THOUGHTS

The Giants get three primetime games, including the early Monday night opener against the Steelers…Then back-to-back in October with the mini-bye Thursday-Sunday combination (at Philly, then 11 days later at home with the Brady Bucs)…An odd divisional cluster with all of the Washington and Eagles games in a five-week, 29-day span at midseason…Throw in the Cowboys game on October 11 and that’s five divisional games in six weeks and only one meeting (Week 17) after the late bye…The one 4:25 start comes on CBS at Dallas, so three national-type games in four weeks, then none at any other time…If LockDown Governors and their medical advisors compel the NFL to flip the first four games to the end of the schedule (as has been one thought), the Giants will have played five divisional games in the first six, then go 1 in the last 10.

– – –

New Giants coach Joe Judge has both Nick Saban and Bill Belichick in his past.  Saban remembers his fondly.  Michael David Smith of ProFootballTalk.com:

Joe Judge spent three years as an assistant coach at Alabama, and his former boss thinks he’s the right fit for the Giants.

Alabama coach Nick Saban said the Giants got a good one in Judge, who parlayed his Alabama job into a job on Bill Belichick’s staff in New England, then became the Giants’ head coach thisyear.

“When Joe was here, he was a young guy, very bright, enthusiastic, great teacher, really good relationships with the players, had lots of leadership qualities about him because of the example that he set and the energy and the enthusiasm he had on a daily basis,” Saban told Giants.com. “And he was really smart. He had a good understanding of football. So no surprise to me that Joe has gotten to this point in his career, and we certainly wish him well. He did a fantastic job here for us.”

The 38-year-old Judge hasn’t proven himself as a head coach yet, but after the Giants’ last two head coaches lasted only two years each, the Giants are hoping Saban is right about Judge.

PHILADELPHIA

Sun Sep. 13               at Washington Redskins        1:00pm ET      FOX

Sun Sep. 20               Los Angeles Rams                 1:00pm ET      FOX

Sun Sep. 27               Cincinnati Bengals                  1:00pm ET     CBS

Sun Oct. 4                  at San Francisco 49ers           8:20pm ET     NBC

Sun Oct. 11                at Pittsburgh Steelers             1:00pm ET     FOX

Sun Oct. 18                Baltimore Ravens                   1:00pm ET     CBS

Thurs Oct. 22             New York Giants                     8:20pm ET     FOX/NFLN/Amazon

Sun Nov. 1                 Dallas Cowboys                      8:20pm ET     NBC

Sun Nov. 8                BYE

Sun Nov. 15               at New York Giants                 1:00pm ET      FOX

Sun Nov. 22               at Cleveland Browns               1:00pm ET      FOX

Mon Nov. 30              Seattle Seahawks                    8:15pm ET     ESPN

Sun Dec. 6                 at Green Bay Packers             4:25pm ET     CBS

Sun Dec. 13               New Orleans Saints                4:25pm ET      FOX

Sun Dec. 20               at Arizona Cardinals                4:05pm ET      FOX

Sun Dec. 27               at Dallas Cowboys                   4:25pm ET     FOX

Sun Jan. 3                  Washington Redskins              1:00pm ET     FOX

SCHEDULE THOUGHTS

The Eagles get 4 primetime games, including 2 on Sunday, in a stretch of 8 mideseason weeks…Three of those primetimers are at home, so three straight night games at the Vets around Halloween…The two meetings with the Giants are in a span of three games (plus the BYE) with the Cowboys in between…Hey, a three-game homestand of elite games Baltimore, Giants and Cowboys – after road games at SF and the every four-year Commonwealth Cup (no such thing that we know of) at Pittsburgh…The Eagles can hope to start 3-0 and with that brutal five-game stretch in front of them, they might need to…They open and close the season with the Redskins.

WASHINGTON

Sun Sep. 13               Philadelphia Eagles                 1:00pm ET     FOX

Sun Sep. 20               at Arizona Cardinals                4:05pm ET     FOX

Sun Sep. 27               at Cleveland Browns               1:00pm ET     FOX

Sun Oct. 4                  Baltimore Ravens                    1:00pm ET     CBS

Sun Oct. 11                Los Angeles Rams                  1:00pm ET     FOX

Sun Oct. 18                at New York Giants                 1:00pm ET     FOX

Sun Oct. 25                Dallas Cowboys                       1:00pm ET     FOX

Sun Nov. 1                 BYE

Sun Nov. 8                 New York Giants                       1:00pm ET    FOX

Sun Nov. 15               at Detroit Lions                          1:00pm ET    FOX

Sun Nov. 22               Cincinnati Bengals                    1:00pm ET    CBS

Thurs Nov. 26            at Dallas Cowboys                    4:30pm ET    FOX

Sun Dec. 6                 at Pittsburgh Steelers               1:00pm ET    FOX

Sun Dec. 13               at San Francisco 49ers            4:25pm ET    FOX

Sun Dec. 20               Seattle Seahawks                     1:00pm ET   FOX

Sun Dec. 27               Carolina Panthers                     1:00pm ET   CBS

Sun Jan. 3                   at Philadelphia Eagles             1:00pm ET    FOX

SCHEDULE THOUGHTS

The Redskins will not appear on a primetime telecast with the consolation prize of going to Dallas late on Thanksgiving for FOX…Their other 15 games are early afternoon local time…They have a stretch of three in a row on the road starting on Thanksgiving at three of the biggest brands in the NFL – Cowboys, Steelers & 49ers…Their season begins and ends with the Eagles…They have three home games on CBS, five on FOX – all at 1 pm.

TAMPA BAY

Peter King has numbers that says QB TOM BRADY is more popular with the Buccaneers than he was with Bill Belichick and the Patriots:

Comparing New England’s national appeal coming off their last three Super Bowl victories to Tampa Bay’s in the first 11 weeks this season is rather stunning. Adding up the prime-time and network doubleheader-window games in the first 11 weeks after New England won its last three Super Bowls, compared to Tampa Bay’s draw in the schedule this year:

7 national TV games — New England, 2015, after winning Super Bowl 49 against the Seahawks

5 national TV games — New England, 2017, after winning Super Bowl 51 against the Falcons

6 national TV games — New England, 2018, after winning Super Bowl 53 against the Rams

9 national TV games — Tampa Bay, 2020, after Tom Brady signed with the Bucs in free agency

5 national TV games — New England, 2020, in their first season without Tom Brady

Note: National games include prime-time games plus all games in the late-Sunday-afternoon doubleheader window. There is one week this season, Week 3, that the Bucs may not be a national game despite being in the late window. The Dallas-Seattle late-window game on FOX is likely to go to more homes than the Tampa Bay-Denver game in the same FOX timeslot.

Moral of the story: The hot new beau is always the most popular beau.

We would add that those Patriot teams had six games each year with the Little Sisters of Buffalo, the Jets and Miami which did not make for easily scheduled games of national interest.

The 2020 Buccaneers were fortunate to have a schedule with two games with the Saints.

SEATTLE

Somehow, from reading all the 2019 pre-draft hype, we gained the impression that WR D.K. METCALF wasn’t very bright or very motivated or very organized.  Something had to be missing for such a supremely physical player lasting as long as he did.

But then we found out that his father played in the league and that his mother was a teacher.

We read other stuff.  Like this from last July from Brady Henderson of ESPN.com:

(Russell) Wilson pointed to Metcalf’s football knowledge when asked what about the rookie wide receiver has stood out most.

“Everybody knows about his ability to run and everything else, and jump and catch and all that,” Wilson said. “You guys have been talking about that for months, but I think more than anything else, it’s his brain and how he processes information and how quickly he understands it. He’s really intelligent. He really understands the game really well. He takes coaching really well. He gets extra work. He’s a legit pro wide receiver. He’s everything that everybody was talking about in terms of what he’s capable of and more.”

Metcalf, at 6-foot-3 and 228 pounds, has looked like a professional receiver during offseason work, so much so that it was easy to momentarily forget about all the concerns over his route running, lateral agility and NFL readiness. Metcalf ran a blazing 4.33 seconds in the 40-yard dash at the combine but produced less impressive results in some of the agility drills. He managed 26 catches for 569 yards and five touchdowns before a neck injury ended his final season at Ole Miss after only seven games.

“Very natural player,” Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said. “He hasn’t had any trouble doing anything we’re doing. He looks like he’s done it before. He’s got to get more disciplined. He’s got splits and all kinds of things, rules that he’s got to get right, but the physical things that [receivers coach Nate Carroll is] asking him to do, he can do it. He can do it. The route changes that we’re doing, the adjustments, his body control. He’s really been a marvelous competitor in this camp. We’ve seen plays out of him every day that look special, and most of it comes out of, one, his speed, but the other is his catching range and the ability to get out away from his body and get up off his feet and make really special catches.

“So we don’t see any hindrance, restriction at all. He’s in here competing to play.”

More from Wilson in November:

“He’s very mature in how he goes about his business,” Wilson said Friday, adding: “He’s just prepared every day. He’s prepared to be a true pro, to try to be great. He’s on his way just by his work ethic. I think that’s the most important thing.”

And now we read this from Jelani Scott of NFL.com:

Metcalf, along with 49ers linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair and Jaguars quarterback Gardner Minshew, who had quite the breakout rookie year of his own, was featured on a panel that spoke to 547 players about adjusting to life in the NFL.

One of his first pieces of advice might ruffle the feathers of a few teachers.

“I think Mo told us in our rookie meeting: ‘Don’t sit nowhere. Let everybody come in first and sit down. Then you find your seat last,'” Metcalf said, per Rob Maaddi of the Associated Press. “So that really set the tone for the year and how to approach everything. Just wait my turn and soak up as much knowledge from the vets as I could.”

Kelly added more context, calling it a “humble experience” for first-year players that are used to being the best of the best to come into the worlds of business and professional sports and “sit back, observe and find a way to fit in.”

Needless to say, heeding those words paid off for Metcalf, who was Seattle’s second-leading wideout in 2019. He also ranked third amongst rookies in total receiving yards.

Speaking of paid, a number of rookies will be signing their contracts in the coming months. And in the spirit of one of his more noteworthy former teammates, the great Marshawn Lynch, Metcalf advised the players to wisely manage their money in his own, non-grocery related kind of way.

“The easiest way to manage that is just to know where your money is going and who has control of it,” he said. “Be proactive and know where your money is going, how you’re spending it, get a budget.”

Aside from his contributions to various highlight reels, Metcalf’s social media presence played a big part in his star rising so quickly. He warned the rookies to make sure they stay on top of their involvement on whatever platform they choose to be on.

“I told them you can’t make everybody happy,” he said. “You’re building a brand and you have to protect that brand, so if somebody calls you out on Twitter or Instagram, you can’t respond. Use social media for a positive impact on your life and other people’s lives and not a negative one.”

Metcalf’s play produced plenty of positivity for the Seahawks last season. Hopefully, his words of wisdom will lead to similar results for the incoming crop of talent.

Now, we should say that part of the reason he wasn’t drafted early is that he has trouble changing direction.  Gary Davenport wrote this is Bleacher Report:

The team that uses that high of a pick on Metcalf will likely rue that decision, though. Yes, Metcalf is big. And strong. And fast in a straight line. But that’s far from everything that goes into being a star receiver at the professional level.

And Metcalf is sorely lacking in a number of areas that are just as important to a wideout’s success.

For starters, while the 21-year-old is physically impressive, his production in college was anything but. Last season at Ole Miss, the redshirt sophomore caught just 26 passes for 569 yards and five scores before a neck injury ended his season seven games in. His average of 21.9 yards per catch is an impressive number on the surface, but the argument can be made that even when he was healthy, Metcalf wasn’t the No. 1 receiver for the Rebels—that was teammate A.J. Brown.

The year before, Metcalf played in 12 games. But again, his production was somewhat pedestrian, with 39 receptions for 646 yards and seven scores.

– – –

Also, while Metcalf’s 40 time and his 27 reps of 225 pounds on the bench press in Indianapolis were indeed impressive, the rest of his workout wasn’t.

Metcalf’s time in the three-cone drill (7.38 seconds) was the third-worst among wide receivers. His 20-yard short shuttle of 4.50 seconds was fourth-worst. And as 247Sports director of scouting Barton Simmons told the Cover 3 College Football Podcast (via colleague Sam Hellman), Metcalf’s showing in the other agility drills didn’t allay concerns that he’s too jacked up—that all the muscle has wrecked his lateral agility:

“What I didn’t know about DK Metcalf, and what I suspected about DK Metcalf, was that he couldn’t move laterally. He couldn’t change directions. He doesn’t run routes. … He is really good at running downfield and making plays. In Ole Miss’ offense, that’s all he’s asked to do, so it’s great. Can he run a route? Can he change direction? Can he throttle down and transition? The 3-cone drill and shuttle are the two measures we have as far as insight into that. He’s not just below average. He’s bad at it.”

For his part, while speaking to Jonathan Jones of The MMQB, Metcalf disputed the notion that he’s gotten too big to play wide receiver.

“Whoever has that question,” Metcalf said, “COME OUT AND GUARD ME, and you tell me if I’m too big to play receiver.”

BALTIMORE

If travel matters, book the Ravens for Tampa in February.  Peter King:

The Baltimore Ravens will never be on a plane between Sept. 21 and Nov. 7.

They have three home games, a bye week and two road games in that period. The road games:

At Washington, Week 4: A 31-mile bus ride.

At Philadelphia, Week 6: A 106-mile bus ride.

The Ravens will fly five times in the last nine weeks of the season. The trips:

At Indianapolis, Week 9: A 82-minute flight.

At New England (Providence airport), Week 10: A 52-minute flight.

At Pittsburgh, Week 12: A 38-minute flight.

At Cleveland, Week 14: A 54-minute flight.

At Cincinnati, Week 17: A 71-minute flight.

Pretty crazy that every road trip for an NFL team for the last 15 weeks of a season would be little more than a puddle jump, or a short drive.

MIAMI

A Don Shula story from longtime p.r. man Harvey Greene:

“Shula relished the accomplishment of the perfect team not only for what it represented, but also how it was achieved—through hard work, determination, intelligence and unselfishness. Traits that defined his life and what he meant by ‘The Winning Edge.’ That’s why he inscribed that mantra into the team’s Super Bowl rings that year.

“Sabol told me the winner was the Steelers. And when I passed that on to Shula, I got the reaction I expected. He went nuts. ‘How the [expletive] could Sabol do that?’ he yelled. ‘What kind of stats did he look at? And what the hell were you doing when you found out he was holding that tournament? Did you even call him to remind him that besides going undefeated, we were one of the very few teams ever to lead the league in both offense and defense the same season? Get him on the goddamned phone!’

 “Sabol knew what was coming and braced for it, but it was too late. As soon as I put Shula on, he yelled at Sabol so loudly that you could hear it throughout the entire building.

“ ‘How the hell did the Steelers beat us? No one else ever did. There is no way a computer could do something that was never accomplished on the field. Garbage in, garbage out!’

“And then he slammed the phone down.

“Their friendship survived that, but Shula never forgot it. And the league didn’t make the same mistake again. When the NFL picked the greatest team in its 100-year history, this time they chose the perfect season team. When I talked to Shula about it, he was proud that his ’72 team finally was officially recognized as the best there ever was.

“Then he said to me, ‘We still should have won that damn game Sabol put together.’ ”

THIS AND THAT

UNLOCKING THE LOCKDOWN

Peter King colludes with Dr. Anthony Fauci to erect barriers to the playing NFL football as we know it this fall.

Toward the end of a 20-minute telephone interview Saturday evening with America’s COVID-19 expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, I asked a question about testing, and about NFL teams playing football this fall.

“Suppose,” I asked, “you test a team of 53 players on a Saturday night and four are positive. Is there a level at which—”

Fauci, the director of the National Institutes for Health since 1984, interrupted. “You got a problem there,” he said. “You know why? Because it is likely that if four of them are positive and they’ve been hanging around together, that the other ones that are negative are really positive. So I mean, if you have one outlier [only one player testing positive], I think you might get away. But once you wind up having a situation where it looks like it’s spread within a team, you got a real problem. You gotta shut it down.”

Shut it down. Quarantine the team, he means. For 14 days. The next two games for that team? Cancelled or postponed. That could be life in the NFL in 2020.

“Also,” I said, “I take it that teams have to be willing to say, If Patrick Mahomes tests positive on a Saturday night, he’s got to disappear for two weeks.”

“Absolutely, absolutely,” Fauci said. “It would be malpractice in medicine to put him on the field, absolutely.”

Talking to Fauci was enlightening, if only to reinforce what most people in America who care to be informed about this coronavirus are thinking right now: We don’t know the future. Anthony Fauci doesn’t know the future either. Our fate, and certainly the NFL’s fate in 2020, depends on so many things we can’t know now—how long this spread will last, how severe the second wave of it will be later this year or early in 2021, whether we can go into a football season, college or pro, with any certainty it will play out till its conclusion, whether fans will attend no games or all of them this season. I wanted Fauci to tell me, and tell the country, whether we’ll be able to play out the 256-game regular season the NFL just announced, with a February Super Bowl, and some bit of normalcy back in this abnormal world.

But Dr. Fauci couldn’t say, because no one can.

“The virus,” he said, “will make the decision for us.”

This interview with Fauci, which was off and on and off and finally on late in the day Saturday, was done with the idea that I’d get a good picture of what the NFL faces in the coming months. I think I did—but that doesn’t mean it’s a clear picture.

“How can I help you?” Fauci began when we connected.

The question we all have, I believe, is whether it makes sense to aim for negative-testing pro football players to compete in empty stadiums starting in September. Fauci suggested stadiums might not have to be empty all season.

“I think it’s feasible that negative testing players could play to an empty stadium,” Fauci said. “Is it guaranteed? No way . . . There will be virus out there and you will know your players are negative at the time they step onto the field. You’re not endangering . . . Also, if the virus is so low that even in the general community the risk is low, then I could see filling a third of the stadium or half the stadium so people could be six feet apart. I mean, that’s something that is again feasible depending on the level of infection. I keep getting back to that: It’s going to depend. Like, right now, if you fast forward, and it is now September. The season starts. I say you can’t have a season—it’s impossible. There’s too much infection out there. It doesn’t matter what you do. But I would hope that by the time you get to September it’s not gonna be the way it is right now.”

It’s clear he thinks the NFL has time on its side. Not just because he sees the virus waning by Labor Day, certainly, but because of other factors that are calendar-friendly. One: The availability of tests should make massive testing by August and September easier. Two: We should be far more prepared to handle the disease as it loosens its grip on society, even with the prospect of a second wave hitting later in the fall. Three: Increased Antogen testing might increase the prospect that a significant segment of society—including, presumably, football players—could be made immune to the virus by plasma donations.

The biggest factor on the NFL’s side might be this: We’re going to be smarter about everything related to the disease in three months, when teams hope to gather for some sort of team training. Think of where we were two months ago today. On March 11, we were still dining out, still shaking hands, still driving to and from work. Three months from now, on Aug. 11, we really don’t know where we’ll be, because three months is an eternity in the race to conquer this virus.

Take testing, for example. I said to Dr. Fauci that if the 32 NFL teams tested players, coach and vital personnel twice a week, that would probably consume about 200,000 COVID-19 tests for the season. I asked Dr. Fauci if that might be reasonable by mid- to late-August, or a bit piggish?

“That’s a great question,” he said. “Right now, it would be overwhelmingly piggish. But by the end of August, we should have in place Antigen testings . . . You could test millions of people, millions of people. But again, we have to make sure that the companies that are doing these tests actually produce them. Which given the country that we have, such a rich country, I would be very surprised if we can’t do that.”

Football’s a different sport than many trying to figure a route back to play. With so much physical contact, I wondered, could the virus be transmissible more in this game than others, with players sweating on each other and gripping and tackling each other?

“Sweat does not do it,” Fauci said. “This is a respiratory virus, so it’s going to be spread by shedding virus. The problem with virus shedding is that if I have it in my nasal pharynx, and it sheds and I wipe my hand against my nose—now it’s on my hand. You see, then I touch my chest or my thigh, then it’s on my chest or my thigh for at least a few hours. Sweat as such won’t transmit it. But if people are in such close contact as football players are on every single play, then that’s the perfect set up for spreading. I would think that if there is an infected football player on the field—a middle linebacker, a tackle, whoever it is it—as soon as they hit the next guy, the chances are that they will be shedding virus all over that person.

“If you really want to be in a situation where you want to be absolutely certain, you’d test all the players before the game. And you say, Those who are infected: Sorry, you’re sidelined. Those who are free: Get in there and play.”

And test more than once a week, if you can.

“If I test today, and I’m negative, you don’t know if I got exposed tomorrow . . . There’s no guarantee that you’re going to get exposed and be positive the next day. To give you an example, you’re probably reading in the newspapers that there’s an infection in the White House. I was exposed to that person. So I immediately got tested. I am negative. So, I’m negative yesterday. I don’t know if I’m going to be negative Monday. Understand? It’s almost an impossible situation. To be 100 percent sure, you’ve got to test every day. But that’s not practical and that’s never going to happen. But you can diminish dramatically by testing everybody Saturday night, Sunday morning, and say OK, only negative players play.”

Fauci said two weeks ago that it’s “inevitable” the virus will return in the fall, and it could make “for a bad fall and a bad winter.” That begs the natural question about how it could affect whether the NFL would be able to get in a full season.

“The answer is not going to be black and white,” Fauci said. “When I said there’s no doubt the virus is going to return, that is in response to some who have said ‘Oh, it’s just going to disappear.’ So, unlike the virus SARS, back in 2002, when we had an outbreak of about 8,000 people and close to 800 deaths, and then the virus just essentially petered out by good public health measures by the simple reason that it wasn’t efficiently or effectively transmitted from one person to another. In other words, it was not an efficient spreader. So that when you tamp down on it with public health measures, it actually got to the point where it disappeared.

“That’s not the case with this novel coronavirus. It is so transmissible, and it is so widespread throughout the world, that even if our infections get well controlled and go down dramatically during the summer, there is virtually no chance it will be eradicated. Which means there will be infections in the Southern Hemisphere, in South Africa, in Argentina, places like that. And with the travel, the global travel, every single day, of literally hundreds of thousands of people coming into the United States every day from all over, there’s no chance we’re going to be virus-free.”

No chance. Which leaves NFL teams under tremendous pressure to create pristine environments in places that, traditionally, are hardly pristine.

“As for the football season and what the fall is going to be: It will be entirely dependent on the effectiveness with which we as a society respond to the inevitable outbreak that will occur. So what are the options? If we let it just go, and we don’t have a good response, you can have an outbreak somewhat similar. Probably not as bad, because we got hit really with a 1-2 punch, particularly in New York City and New Orleans and Chicago. But we can expect an outbreak that would be serious. That’s if we do nothing. So it’s inconceivable that we would do nothing. What we’re saying is what is going to be the effectiveness of our response? . . .

“Now, even if the virus goes down dramatically in June and July and August, as the virus starts returning in the fall, it would be in my mind, shame on us if we don’t have in place all of the mechanisms to prevent it from blowing up again. In other words, enough testing to test everybody that needs to be tested. Enough testing so that when someone gets infected, you could immediately do contact tracing and isolation to prevent the infection from going to a couple of infections to hundreds of infections. That’s how you control an outbreak.

“So, practically speaking, the success or failure, the ability or not, to actually have a football season is going to depend on just on what I said . . . but what I’m really saying is it’s unpredictable depending upon how we respond in the fall.”

I asked this about working with President Trump, who has been pretty clear that he wants sports, and normalcy, to return to the country: How much does that have to whether football will be played this fall?

“No, well, you know,” he said, a bit cautiously, “I could only give my medical advice. If there’s infection out there, and I say I think that we should lock down or not, I’m just an opinion among many. Whether people listen to my public health opinion or override it, that’s out of my hands.”

Fauci said the NFL hasn’t reached out to talk to him. But if Roger Goodell or chief medical officer Allen Sills did, Fauci said he’d say much of what he said here. And this, about sports in the United States this fall and winter: “It is uncertain. You’ll have to play it by ear according to the level of infection in the community.”

What is not apparent in the conversation between Fauci and King is any acknowledgement that COVID-19 is almost no danger to the vast majority of people the age of NFL players.  So are you going to sideline every asymptomatic, but positive testing player?

The MLB study is in, with info from Jeff Passan:

Sixty of the 5,754 people in a study of the Major League Baseball employee population tested positive for coronavirus antibodies, a rate lower than what similar studies run in California found, the studies’ authors said Sunday.

“I was expecting a larger number,” said Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a professor of medicine at Stanford University, which ran the study. “It shows the value of doing the science as opposed to guessing.”

The results of the study, which was held in mid-April, revealed a prevalence of COVID-19 antibodies in the MLB employee population of 0.7 percent — a number adjusted to reflect testing accuracy. The survey showed that about 70% of those who tested positive for COVID-19 antibodies had been asymptomatic.

After volunteering to participate, MLB was chosen by Stanford to join the study, which will have no bearing on the league’s ability to return to play as it prepares to offer a proposal to the players’ association this week that will outline a plan to do so.

Twenty-six of MLB’s 30 teams participated in the study, which sent out 10,000 test kits. Because of stay-at-home orders and other logistical complications, 5,754 of the tests, in which participants use a pin prick to draw blood and received almost immediate results, were completed. A total of 5,603 completed the tests and filled out a survey that accompanied it.

Men comprised 60% of the population and white people 80% — numbers that don’t necessarily reflect the nation and make extrapolating the findings problematic. Similarly, Bhattacharya said, the prevalence of white-collar workers among the MLB population could account for a prevalence rate lower than those found in different samples with tests done in Santa Clara County in Northern California and Los Angeles County in Southern California.

“There’s a socioeconomic gradient where poorer populations are facing COVID infections at higher rates,” Bhattacharya said.

Among those with COVID-19 antibodies in the MLB study, in the two weeks prior to the test:

2.7% had a fever

14% had a headache

8% had a cough (compared to 9% among those who tested negative)

0.9% had lost a sense of taste and smell

Bhattacharya said the study has not been peer-reviewed but that he plans to upload it to a preprint server for criticism as well as a medical journal to peer review.

So nearly 6,000 people, 60 “infected” although only two reached so much as a fever, much less hospitalization.

PETER KING AND THE SCHEDULE

Some thoughts on the schedule from Peter King:

1. The NFL did a big solid for ESPN. Regular-season game of the year: Kansas City-Baltimore. Mahomes-Jackson. AFC rights-holder CBS really wanted it. CBS, having lost the game’s biggest drawing cards (Peyton Manning and Tom Brady) in the last five years, was the favorite; NBC, the biggest TV draw in the NFL, really wanted it for Sunday night. ESPN really wanted it for Monday night. ESPN got it. Why? Those in the TV business are convinced it’s because ESPN has come up so big for the NFL in the last two months—treating free agency as a big-league sport in the opening days of the coronavirus, then choreographing the most popular draft in NFL history by seamlessly merging with NFL Network and turning the glitzy draft into the feel-good sports story of the pandemic—from the ESPN studios in Connecticut. Giving the best game of the year to ESPN was a back-pat from the league.

2. But business is business. Couldn’t help but notice the NFL scheduled a late-afternoon Christmas game for 4:30 p.m. ET on Friday, Dec. 25—Vikings at Saints. Christmas Day football on FOX. Why? Because the NFL saw the chance for an extra window, and heading into big TV negotiations (likely to get serious after the 2020 season), this was one big way to goose the ratings instead of just making this game a Sunday doubleheader game opposite Philadelphia-Dallas. I highlight this game because Christmas Day is an NBA day, an ESPN/ABC day. The NBA plays games at noon, 2:30 p.m., 5 p.m., 8 p.m. and 10:30 p.m., all ET, on ESPN or ABC. Vikings-Saints will steal viewers from the second half of NBA game two and all of game three. Suppose ESPN wants Zion Williamson of the New Orleans Pelicans to play on Christmas, and it almost surely will. Zion will either be on the road in game one, four or five, I’d think. So ESPN has to be euphoric it got Chiefs-Ravens and nauseous that 3.5 hours of Christmas will be pilfered by the NFL.

3. Flex scheduling expansion. NBC has flex scheduling in Weeks 5 through 16; a game can be switched with the scheduled Sunday night game up to 12 days prior to that Sunday. (In Week 17, no game is scheduled for Sunday night, and the league chooses a playoff-impacting game for Sunday night six or seven days prior to the final day of the season.) But if there are weeks when no fans are in the stands, why wouldn’t the league make it an option to flex games up to the Monday prior to the game? It would be good for ratings in this important ratings season, and also good for fans. Come to think of it, why not try it for ESPN on select Monday nights too? If ESPN got a taste of flex scheduling, what might they pay for it in the next TV contract?

4. The international games. I believe if the NFL released the schedule in mid-April, as was the pre-pandemic plan, the five international games would have remained intact. But with too much travel/COVID-19 uncertainty, it was impossible to be sure those games would be played, and would be played with fans. Thus, the NFL eliminated the four London and one Mexico games. No long-term impact on international ball, though. Those games should return in 2021.

5. This was an easier schedule to build—much easier. In the past, I’ve written about how a Papal visit to Philadelphia in-season, college games at the L.A. Colseum, a game by the All Blacks at Soldier Field, and conflicts with the baseball stadium in Oakland have made the rubric of the NFL schedule so tough to navigate. Not so this year. There are no large public gatherings happening, anywhere. The Taylor Swift, Kenny Chesney, Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber tours all had NFL stadia holds in the fall dropped because no concerts are happening. The Raiders aren’t in Oakland anymore. The Rams aren’t at the Coliseum. The longer the NFL waited to build this schedule, the easier the job became.

6. Who got jobbed? Detroit. Not terribly, but the Lions have one home game in September, one home game in October, three home games in November, and three home games after Dec. 1. Detroit is home one day between Sept. 13 and Halloween. Not optimal. If they start 1-5, the Lions will be playing for the draft for two months.

7. Super Bowl LV. Scheduled for Feb. 7 in Tampa. Could be held in Raymond James Stadium, easily, on Feb. 14, 21 or 28.

8. Portability. The NFL will be just like society. It will be ruled by the virus. It’s fruitless to guess now. The league could be interrupted by a fall or winter second wave of COVID-19, as Dr. Anthony Fauci explained higher in this column. As I’ve written in the past couple of weeks, the league has a convenient way to push the season back four weeks. With no byes in the first four weeks, the NFL could open the season on Thursday, Oct. 8—the scheduled first game of Week 5—and have Week 17 on Sunday, Jan. 31. That would mean a Feb. 28 Super Bowl, if the league would go without the Pro Bowl and the week between conference title games and the Super Bowl. All sort of scheduling blips can happen, but the virus will rule those blips.

9. Home field. If there are fan-less games, what teams lose? Seattle, to be sure. Imagine empty stadiums in the first half of the season; the Seahawks would lose home-field advantage with New England (Week 2), Dallas (Week 3), Minnesota (Week 5) and, importantly, San Francisco (Week 8). Will they even need a home-field edge in December, when the Giants, Jets and Rams come calling?

10. Weird cross-flex. Not only do the Giants not play on Sunday night for the first time since Mastadons roamed the earth, but did you notice in Week 5, the New York-Dallas game is a doubleheader game and was cross-flexed to CBS? Cool that Texan Tony Romo gets a rare home game that week (which I say optimistically, because it’s certainly possible that TV teams will be at remote sites this year), but for both Cowboys-Giants games to not be in prime time or in a big FOX window is just weird. And telling about the state of the Giants.

11. Two games, one trip. I heard that eight teams asked to have two distant games paired so those teams could take one long road trip instead of two. The Chargers (at Bucs, Saints), Rams (at Eagles, Bills), Jets (at Seahawks, Rams), Dolphins (at 49ers, Broncos), Cardinals (at Panthers, Jets) and Raiders (at Falcons, Jets) all got their road requests answered. My favorite two: San Francisco plays in MetLife Stadium in Weeks 2 and 3—at Jets on Sept. 20, at Giants on Sept. 27, both 10 a.m. PT body-clock games. And New England has the rarest of two-game trips. The itinerary:

• Depart Providence, Saturday Dec. 5.

• Play Chargers at SoFi Stadium, Los Angeles, Sunday Dec. 6.

• Practice in southern California two or three days.

• Play Rams at SoFi Stadium, Los Angeles, Thursday Dec. 10.

• Arrive Providence, Friday Dec 11.

Not bad. The Patriots knock off two of their three long trips of the season in a six-day span, and get to practice in SoCal in December. That’s about the best schedule a team could ask for, especially when two L.A. trips are on the slate. Plus, they’ll get to visit Mozza and eat the best pizza in Western Civilization in the process.  

12. Quirk of the Year. The Jets and Dolphins are such pals anyway, and this year, they play consecutive games against each other. They should spend Thanksgiving together. Nov. 15, New York at Miami. Nov. 22, bye. Nov. 26, Thanksgiving. Nov. 29, Miami at New York. Come on, Adam Gase! Open your Jersey home to those Dolphins! You know you love them.

13. Robert Kraft Note of the Week. New England might be in for a correction, but the league is giving the benefit of the doubt to the Patriots. They’re scheduled for the maximum five prime-time games—two Sunday nights, two Monday nights and one Thursday-nighter.

14. Howard Katz Knows What He’s Doing Note. The VP of broadcasting and scheduling honcho can’t make every week of the season shine. A few of them have to be blasé. Like Week 13 this year: Cowboys-Ravens, Broncos-Chiefs, Bills-Niners are the prime-time affairs, and all could be good, or all could have one meh team. Hard to say. But there’s a hidden gem that could really spice up the week: Cincinnati at Miami. Joe Burrow at Tua Tagovailoa, perhaps? In the first matchup of the two megastars from the 2020 draft? Who knows what the future holds. Could be Burrow-Ryan Fitzpatrick too. But it’s just one of those interesting place-holders I’ll be watching.

15. The best Sunday of the year. I may need one Sunday off, with a bucket of Peronis by my side in the easy chair. Oct. 25 would be the day. At 1, I’ll flip between Steelers-Ravens and Joe Brady/Teddy Bridgewater at Sean Payton/Drew Brees. In the late window, I’ll do picture-in-picture between Jimmy G’s reunion tour at the Patriots and the Chiefs testing their offensive imitators in Denver for the first time. At night, it’s Tom Brady at Jon Gruden, in the new Vegas stadium. And imagine if the World Series is going on just then . . . Yanks at Dodgers. In between Brady barking at Chucky, I flip over and there’s Mookie Betts with the bases loaded against Gerrit Cole. Transfixed for 10.5 hours.

Man, I hope we’ve got sports back by then, in full.