The NFL’s opt-out deadline for players came and went on Thursday, and now the season will march on to kickoff. Even with the recent political controversies, a season of professional football will signify a return to normalcy, as long as it can stay on the tracks.
The NFL is the king of sports, and the ratings tell the story. The 2019 World Series averaged around 14 million viewers, the 2019 NBA Finals did 20.5 million, and college football’s National Championship game reached over 25 million. Super Bowl LIV in 2019 was watched by over 98 million people, which was an 11-year low, and this year’s Super Bowl topped 100 million.
Unlike the sports that have already returned, the NFL is planning on holding its full, previously scheduled season, a strategy that even college football bailed out on. This means that the NFL, the juggernaut of American sports and American culture, could provide the much-needed stability and sense of normalcy that we’ve been unable to find since the pandemic started.
There will be bumps in the road. NFL players are currently being tested every day, with 59 players testing positive for the coronavirus among 95 total NFL employees. The NFL is not using the bubble system either, meaning it’ll replicate the model Major League Baseball is using. Players for the Miami Marlins and St. Louis Cardinals got careless with MLB protocols, leading to outbreaks among both teams, which the NFL will have to avoid.
But the first obstacle is out of the way; 69 players opted-out of the season on Thursday, only 4% of the league’s active rosters. While a handful of the league’s starters are among those numbers, most will be returning to the gridiron for the league’s kickoff in September.
The NFL schedule is unchanged, and while there’s no indication of when (if at all) fans will be allowed back at games, the return of America’s sport to a normal fall schedule will be an important milestone. With school plans and lockdown restrictions varying by county, a full, nationally televised NFL season would signal the end of our “new normal.”
