“I haven’t been vaccinated yet,” Panthers quarterback Sam Darnold told the local media.
But here’s the one thing that you can’t say about this issue: that it won’t have an impact on NFL teams six or seven weeks from now when training camps kick off.
On Tuesday night, Washington coach Ron Rivera brought in leading immunologist Kizzmekia S.
The Chiefs are one with a relatively high vaccination rate, and one factor that was brought up repeatedly by those within the team is the fact that Patrick Mahomes was among the very first to get his shots.
Kansas City coach Andy Reid and head athletic trainer Rick Burkholder also have engaged players in very open and honest conversation while trying to convey what they know.
And new Falcons coach Arthur Smith approached it with the players similar to how Reid did with his—giving them the facts, encouraging them to talk about it with the team’s doctors and trainers, and being sure not to pressure or guilt-trip them.
Coach Mike Tomlin’s done it by deferring mostly to head athletic trainer John Norwig, who’s going into his 31st season with the team and has the players’ implicit trust.
The fact is, camp is a challenging time of year for every team, and, obviously, these circumstances would make it more challenging for some teams than others, tipping the competitive-balance scale a little.
The first one is how testing adds about 45 minutes to a player’s day, and how coaches might not be building schedules around those 45 minutes the same way they were to accommodate everyone a year ago.
But this year, guys dealing with it will be playing against a lot of players who won’t have to.
No matter where coaches might personally come down on this, they all realize there’s a competitive advantage, or disadvantage, to be had there.
One coach told me he has a holdout who’s never had a flu shot, doesn’t drink and is ultra-careful with what he puts in his body, who asked, “Why should I start now?” Then there’s the simpler, “I’m not going to be told what to do” reasoning.
Wherever guys land on it, for all of those who haven’t had the vaccine, time is running short.
The Bengals are one that set up a June 17 vaccination day for players at Paul Brown Stadium, which will be the fourth one they’ve done this spring.
At this point, Cincinnati’s in pretty good shape, hovering around 65% and needing maybe nine or 10 more guys to get the vaccine to cross the 85% threshold.
We’re continuing our 2021 award series today! So far, we have Washington LB Jamin Davis as DROY, Jaguars QB Trevor Lawrence as OROY and Dak Prescott as Comeback Player of the Year.
1) Sean Payton, Saints : Everyone’s so fixated on the quarterbacks that they may not realize New Orleans has built one of the NFL’s best rosters over the last five years.
• What became NFL Europe launched as the World League of American Football in 1991, with three European teams—one in England, one in Spain and one in Germany.
• The NFL had an average-minute audience of about 600,000 for NFL games last year on its German broadcast partner ProSieben, which is better than the NHL does in the U.S.
• The history of the game in Germany goes back further than that, with the roots seeded in U.S.
“Actually, on every criteria, almost any way you look at it, Super Bowl audiences, general audiences and the size of the market in terms of the consumer products that we sell, in terms of video views, followers, etc., Germany is the largest market in Europe, really,” NFL head of U.K.
that it could replicate in other places, and that took time, and now the league is finally in a place where it’s confident taking it and planting it in new locales.
The league’s presentation to owners back in March pinpointed Berlin and Munich as possible homes for the NFL’s next big European effort—and if it’s the latter, centering a game on Oktoberfest has been one fun part of the discussion—but I know they’re going to listen to all viable proposals that come their way.
So, for example, while scouts have watched guys pegged for the top of the 2022 draft, like Oregon pass rusher Kayvon Thibodeaux and LSU corner Derek Stingley Jr., just by virtue of going through their schools’ ’20 tape, most haven’t truly studied them yet.
And so last summer, I started asking around about him and a North Dakota State quarterback named Trey Lance, since I’d seen both in those mocks.
It’s just the reality of what he’d put on film, having started just 16 games at Wake .
Anyway, from there, Newman transferred to Georgia, which objectively seemed like a pretty good idea, given how loaded the Bulldogs’ roster was, and that they had an opening at his position after losing three-year starter Jake Fromm.
But the latter? Clearly, the latter call was a result of Newman’s believing that the NFL saw him in a light that it now obviously does not.
So instead of getting to play for a national contender in the fall, and gobble up important game reps, Newman spent the year training for the combine, and to throw at pro day, and came out of it in a worse spot than he went in.
The moral of the story, to me, for college kids in that same spot now, that are starting to see their names connected to “draft grades”: Do your best to ignore them.
I’ve talked to more than a few coaches who believe those practices are more effective for evaluating players and getting their vets ready than for preseason games.