Will There Be a 2020 Football Season?

Chances of a 2020 season?

  • Full 12 Game Schedule

    Votes: 20 36.4%
  • Shortened Season

    Votes: 13 23.6%
  • No Games Played

    Votes: 22 40.0%

  • Total voters
    55
  • Poll closed .
And the next domino falls:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/2020/07/21/nfl-cancel-2020-preseason-agrees-reduced-training-camp-rosters/5483773002/

If NFL actually plays, it will be interesting to see games with no preseason warmup.  However, this is probably just moving things closer to cancellation by small steps.  If NFL cancels, I don't see how colleges can justify playing.


The dirty secret is that long before COVID, no one wanted the full NFL preseason other than the owners. Season ticket holders are forced to pay full price for four glorified scrimmages loaded with injury paranoia and guys who won't even make the team. 

 
This is a good point however population density is also a factor - now it would be silly to say that it would cause that number to increase by 70x  but then again it would also be silly to say that no other factors play into this.

no matter what happens with other sectors of our world - American college football will give it a run ( they may or may not make it) but college football is the real deal in our country.
While population density is a factor among other factors that puts Australia at less risk than the US, they took more precautions despite the fact that they have less risk factors. Any way you slice it though, they have done better than we have even taking into account all of the variables. 

As to American football being the real deal, I really don't know how that applies. Just because it's the real deal doesn't mean it's necessary to have during this specific time 

 
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But I didn't say it was the same.  Your initial claim was that if one player was hospitalized, the whole thing would be shut down.  I disagreed and said that players end up in the hospital for various reasons weekly.  One case wouldn't be a death sentence.  You asked me for examples of this.  

You over react to everything posted if it doesn't align with your beliefs.  Step back and look at the current data we have.  College age athletes in the best shape of their lives are much more likely to suffer serious health problems from a plethora of things that aren't covid.    


I still believe that if one student-athlete is hospitalized for Covid that the whole thing shuts down. The risk-adverse nature of administrators and the media outrage machine will force a shutdown. I would venture to say that if one student-athlete during the season will cause the whole thing to shut down as that will be the impetus to cause the media and administration to say "it is not worth it." Cancel culture will cause the cancellation of the season. 

But if we are going by age alone, then "who is going to coach the team?" I would think that the average age of coaches is over 35 years of age. By logic, there will be no one to coach the team but the team can play? 

 
Totally agree with US taking more risk then Austrailia - then again US was born on risk so wouldn't it be assumed.  This virus is worse then the flu but 2 years from now i'm confident that the numbers will show that it wasn't 5x the flu.  The severe sickness and death rate has declined drastically and will continue - not sure I can say the same about the media.
Again this isn't the thread for this conversation and I disagree with so much about this post so I'm just going to leave it be as to not further get into the weeds. 

Ultimately it will go from the top down. HS will push ahead for now but it NFL cancels, NCAA cancels and shortly after most HS will too. 

 
Let's be honest: none of these are no-brainer decisions. Whatever you do, people are going to get hurt. In a year we will look back at July 2020 and marvel about some of the presumptions we had wrong. 

Right now the numbers for the young and healthy are good and treatment is rapidly improving. It remains a pandemic, but might be considerably less deadly than the first wave that hit the most vulnerable population. 

So what would that look like?  Maybe one game where an outbreak forces Purdue to forfeit. Maybe one game where Nebraska has to bench five sick starters, but plays anyway. Maybe JoJo Domann and Rahmir Johnson are the only players requiring hospitalization and maybe Johnson is the only one who has to quit football due to COVID-related lung damage (he could just as easily have torn an MCL.) Maybe Mario Verduzco is the only person on the staff to actually die.  Nobody in in the stands because the super-spreader danger is the one thing people can agree on.

The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, but would we be okay with that scenario?  I'm honestly not sure about anything. 

 
I would agree Guy - no easy decisions.  I think your scenario, while plausible, is unlikely based on what we think we know right now.  I think if we knew your scenario was accurate, we would all agree to postpone/cancel the season.  Many of us just don't think that will happen.  Time will provide a lot of clarity one way or the other.  

 
So what would that look like?  Maybe one game where an outbreak forces Purdue to forfeit. Maybe one game where Nebraska has to bench five sick starters, but plays anyway. Maybe JoJo Domann and Rahmir Johnson are the only players requiring hospitalization and maybe Johnson is the only one who has to quit football due to COVID-related lung damage (he could just as easily have torn an MCL.) Maybe Mario Verduzco is the only person on the staff to actually die.  Nobody in in the stands because the super-spreader danger is the one thing people can agree on.
Not to say this is what the season would look like, but if this is what the season would look like it makes it hard to support. What if a version of this happens to every single team that plays? And the lung damage is on top of players getting MCL injuries and the like, those injuries won't just go away. Both things a player now has to worry about ending his career. Can't say i could get behind a season like that 

 
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