FOXBOROUGH, MASSACHUSETTS – JANUARY 04: Tom Brady #12 of the New England Patriots yells to teammates on the field during the the AFC Wild Card Playoff game against the Tennessee Titans at Gillette Stadium on January 04, 2020 in Foxborough, Massachusetts. (Photo by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)
The coronavirus may have shut down pretty much all live sporting events, but the NFL offseason will begin as scheduled.
There hasn’t been much good news for sports fans during this coronavirus pandemic, but the NFL is providing a meaningful distraction. After the owners and players ratified a new collective bargaining agreement that provides labor peace through 2030, the NFL will officially begin its league year tomorrow as planned.
There had been some thought as late as Saturday that the NFL would delay the start of business due to the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic, which has led to efforts to increase social distancing in order to slow the spread of the disease. The NFL was also reportedly concerned about the bad optics of handing out multi-million dollar contracts while people are sick, but it appears those concerns were not enough to delay free agency.
The league’s legal tampering period begins at noon tomorrow, and at that point, there should be a flurry of deals that get announced. With big names like Tom Brady, Jameis Winston, Philip Rivers, and Jadeveon Clowney set to hit the market there could be a free agent frenzy.
The big change in the free agency period is that official visits to team facilities will be severely limited due to the coronavirus, so teams will be recruiting new players over electronic means. The obvious impact is that teams won’t be able to conduct physicals and get potential targets familiar with their facilities, but those steps could always be conducted later in the offseason.
While the big money guys should sign relatively quickly, it will be interesting to see if the second wave of free agency will be impacted by the lack of in-person visits due to the coronavirus. Teams often get a lot of information that helps influence their decision making on those free-agent visits, and for players in a similar category, it can often be a deal-breaker.
The good news for sports fans is that there will be actual news to discuss that doesn’t involve sports being shut down. The speculation about how these moves impact teams going forward will help change the conversation for a while, which is refreshing in this environment.