As the NFL works through scheduling gymnastics to reschedule regular-season games because of positive COVID-19 tests, the league is continuing to explore long-term contingency plans once the regular season ends.
Multiple NFL sources told The Athletic the league is still considering the viability of creating a postseason bubble, which could mean playing later-round playoff games at neutral sites, in advance of Super Bowl LV in Tampa.
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“Part of the discussion… is that for playoffs they may be able to do a bubble type system that would avoid having to reschedule or losing key players because (they are) COVID positive or had contact with COVID positive,” said one of the sources. “It’s a big undertaking if they do this.”
The NFL declined to comment.
Los Angeles and Dallas could be two potential options, sources said, given their football facilities (AT&T Stadium and SoFi Stadium), hotel space and climates. A potential scenario that has been discussed is wild card games being played as normal, and the advancing teams moving into a bubble scenario for the divisional round and conference championship games. That would mimic baseball, which staged the playoff first round in team markets, and the subsequent ones in neutral/bubble sites, in Southern California and Arlington, Tex.
Any sort of in-season NFL bubble, including 32 individual bubbles is not under consideration, sources said, for several reasons, including the logistics of how many people the NFL would need to include and the facilities required. The NFLPA is unlikely to agree to a bubble in-season, and the NFL does not believe it could enact a bubble unilaterally.
A postseason bubble, though, would be an easier sell, because the timeline would be far shorter — just a couple of weeks — and would only include teams with plenty at stake. (The NBA, for comparison, left the bottom eight teams in the standings out of their Orlando bubble.) There are plenty of logistics to work out, of course, but after the COVID-19 outbreak in Tennessee, four positive player tests in New England and scattered individual positives elsewhere in the league have forced multiple postponements and altered rosters, a January bubble could be a way to protect the league’s most important games.
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Those discussions are just part of the short- and long-term planning at the league office. Immediately, the focus has been on preserving as many regular-season games as possible without using the Week 18 option.
Just look at Sunday’s machinations, as the league announced the rescheduling of eight AFC games. The Los Angeles Chargers had four of their games rescheduled, as well as their bye week. The Miami Dolphins had three games and their bye week changed. The Broncos had their Week 5 game against the Patriots moved to Week 6, and after learning of that move early Sunday morning, head coach Vic Fangio gave his players three days off. The Broncos will go 17 days between games after playing on Thursday night in Week 4.
“You get to see who the whiners are, who the bitchers are, and who can’t handle adversity,” Fangio said Sunday. “I’m going to work hard to make sure the Denver Broncos don’t fall into those categories.”
Those moves come after the Titans-Bills game, originally scheduled for Sunday, was pushed to Tuesday night, becoming just the third Tuesday night game in NFL history, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. Look for the NFL to continue to try creative rescheduling options, requiring teams and broadcast networks alike to be flexible.
The most recent schedule changes involve seven CBS games, and one Fox/NFL Network/Amazon broadcast. (The Broncos-Patriots game, originally scheduled for Week 4, was moved from CBS to ESPN when the league tried to move it to this Monday night; it will go back to a CBS broadcast in Week 5.)
Eleven AFC teams have now had at least one game rescheduled because of the coronavirus: The Titans, Bills, Steelers, Ravens, Patriots, Broncos, Chargers, Jets, Jaguars, Dolphins and Chiefs.
An NFL source told The Athletic that it would be naive to think these schedule changes would be the last ones the NFL has to make. At some point, the NFL knows it will be out of options to swap bye weeks and dates in October and November, and will have no choice but to move games into the first week in January.
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“Overall, we’re going to try to fit it within the 17-week season, and try to preserve making any changes to the 18th week until we have to,” the source said.
A different source said that the NFL would likely only play games in Week 18 that had playoff implications, opening the door for the potential that some teams might not wind up playing a full 16-game schedule.
(Photo: Jeff Roberson/Associated Press)