By Marc Lawrence — CBS Sports says that the good news for the NFL is that the early stages of these other sports bubbles seem to be working relatively well so far, which should provide some confidence when it comes to the outlook of a football season. With more than seven weeks until the start of the regular season, the NFL will have some time to learn from other leagues and come up with a plan to protect not only its players, but the integrity of the league’s standings as well. What they’re eventually going to have to address, though, is competitive balance. Even as the league attempts to reach such an agreement with the NFLPA, returning to play during a pandemic will likely present a number of hurdles and challenges on the fly. NFLPA president and Browns center J.C. Tretter opined: “If the center tests positive on a Friday, and there’s a quarantine period for all of his close contacts… well, if I just came from practice where I’ve been in a huddle with all my offensive teammates, been doing individual drills with all my linemen, then blocking the defensive linemen and linebackers all afternoon, aren’t we talking about 35 guys being close contacts with me? And if they’re all in quarantine for the next couple days, what does Sunday’s game look like? You don’t have enough bodies to put on the field to play.” Yes it’s going to be a tricky situation, to say the least.
Trending Today
As we head into the new MLB season, there remains an uncertainty with MLB’s ball supply. We know for sure that 90 dozen balls will be used per team per game this season than last due to the fact that any time a ball is touched by multiple position players during a game, it has to be taken out of play. Will the 2020 pristine balls be as “juiced” and have as much carry as the ones that led to a record number of home runs (6,776) last year? Mike Axisa of CBS Sports says yes, and then some. He’s predicting 2,600 homers this season, which is a 7,000-homer pace in a full 162-game season.
Grinding Out The Profits
2020 PLAYBOOK Football Preview Guide magazine reports: Before making a futures bet on the NFL MVP, one would be wise to heed this warning: the last 10 MVP winners (9 of whom were QBs) played on teams that averaged nearly 12 wins per season (11 the fewest). Just sayin’.
