USA TODAY Sports
At the end of NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell’s press conference on Thursday, he was joined onstage for a few minutes by the director of the NFL Players Association, DeMaurice Smith.
The two men discussed how collaboration between the NFL and NFLPA in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic made the 2020 season possible as they worked together to find solutions to major problems. One of those solutions was to run off-season programs remotely and the fact that this didn’t lead to a negative result on the field will lead to further discussions about what the off-season will look like.
NFLPA president and Browns center JC Tretter said at the end of the regular season that this season’s experience should lead to permanent changes in the off-season schedule and said at the NFLPA press conference on Thursday that he and others are ‘ physically better and mentally sharper. than in previous years. He attributed that to avoid the “never-ending grind” of a typical year, and Smith echoed those comments.
“I think each of these guys who have lived in a football world for a long time have seen their teams do a lot of things differently, but otherwise let’s put it aside. It was smarter, ”Smith said. So the fact that you just don’t have guys stuck in a facility for hours just killing time. That we can really do things through conference calling and Skype and Zoom, it’s all about being smarter. At the end of the day, what will happen is that we have our annual representative meetings in March. We will continue to talk to the players about the things that they think were a better and smarter way to play football and I think some of those things, most things have nothing to do with COVID. “
Goodell said at his press conference that it is too early to know exactly what the off-season and 2021 season will look like, but said that “will virtually become a part of our lives” in the future. How much it will play will be up for debate off-season.