NFL should follow safety protocols seriously to save season

Freepiks

The NFL needs to take COVID-19 precautions more seriously to ensure it can run its season.

Oscar Frias-Rivera, Reporter

During these hard times of COVID-19, many people question if football should still be played.

Football should continue until there is a serious outbreak and a solid reason to push back games for the season. 

To avoid an outbreak which would stop the season, the National Football League needs to take COVID-19 safety measures more seriously.

COVID-19 has impacted the NFL significantly because many players and staff have tested positive.

A few teams that have been impacted are the Tennessee Titans, New England Patriots and Minnesota Vikings. Some of these cases are worse than the others but it hasn’t stopped the NFL to continue the game. 

All they have been doing is switching up the schedule for it to make it work for each individual team in the league. 

Will they finish on time? Possibly. But seeing how some of these teams are handling protocol, some just aren’t listening well and could cost the entire season. 

The Pittsburgh Steelers got one of the worst outcomes due to the virus as they were set to face the Titans last week but kept getting pushed back a day later till they had to reschedule the whole game to later on in the season. The Steelers had no choice but to go on a shortened week which was a major loss for them. 

Other teams have the same situation but it could be possible depending if there are more positive tests. 

The NFL should learn a thing or two from the NBA, which just wrapped up their season that started in July and had only a few positive tests. Them being in the bubble made the season safer.

So the NFL should figure out how to do something similar, especially since they have a shorter season than the NBA and have a week to prepare for each game. 

Right now the NFL is in good hands with what they are doing to move on each week with each game but we still don’t know for how long. 

The NFL wants this to end as planned at Super Bowl LV on Feb. 7, 2021 but the season could be in jeopardy if they keep getting as many positive tests as they did lately.