Although the NFL remains optimistic there will be a regular season in 2020, the increasing severity of the coronavirus pandemic in many parts of the country means nothing is certain, and Malcolm Jenkins doesn’t like the look of any of it. The league initially dodged the worst fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic by virtue of professional football being scheduled for September, whereas other major sports leagues were either well underway or about to begin their seasons when the novel coronavirus gripped the planet in the spring, leading the NFL to suffer only a virtual offseason and canceled mini camps.
And while commissioner Roger Goodell is still eyeing a possible July 28 start to training camp, the Pro Football Hall of Fame Game between the Dallas Cowboys and the Los Angeles Rams has reportedly been sacked, leaving Jenkins and other players to wonder if it’s still too unsafe to consider playing football in 2020.
Some point to the soon-to-reopen NBA as a possible blueprint for the NFL, noting how Disney World will be used as a bubble city to house all players, league personnel and media covering the sport, but Jenkins believes that format is unrealistic when it comes to football. As such, he’s resolute in his stance the COVID-19 threat mustn’t simply be curbed, but instead quashed altogether before he’s OK with re-entering an NFL locker room.
“The NBA is a lot different than the NFL,” Jenkins said, via CNN. “They can actually quarantine all of their players, or whoever is going to participate, whereas we have over 2,000 players; and even more coaches and staff who can’t do that. So we end up being on this trust system — the honor system — where we just have to hope that guys are social distancing and things like that, and that puts all of us at risk. That’s not only us as players, and whoever’s in the building(s), but when we go home to families. READ MORE
