Pessimism surrounds NFL as training camp approaches
Terez Paylor and Charles Robinson break down the growing sense of dread around the NFL world.
Video Transcript
CHARLES ROBINSON: Like, I think they're NFL teams that are sitting there feeling less prepared than they could have been, you know. And then now they're sort of showing off, here's where we stand on this. So once I had heard about that, I started to call some teams. And I'm like, hey. All the sudden, I'm hearing some-- some pretty high ranking individuals from some teams that don't feel great about this. How do you feel?
And one general manager, in particular, who I think felt pretty optimistic about this, up until this week, I reached out to him, thinking he's going to tell me, hey, we're going to give it our best shot and da, da da. And he goes, you know, I don't feel-- I don't feel so optimistic now. I'm starting to feel kind of pessimistic about what's going to happen here.
And I think it's just the reality of knowing the fight that the NFL has with the PA right now-- the reality, the players are really nervous right now. And I think fans better understand and be prepared for this right now. When the end of the month comes and veterans are supposed to show up, there is a very real possibility that the NFL PA stands up and says, nope, not letting veterans report.
It's not going to happen. We don't like where this is. We do not have all the answers we need. We do not have all the protocols in place that are necessary. We are absolutely not going to allow our veterans to report on time at the end of this month. Fans should get ready for that right now, because I would put the percentages in favor of that happening versus people actually all showing up on the 20th.
TEREZ PAYLOR: It's a uncertain, unusual situation that no one is sure what the end result will look like, whether the season's delayed, whether there's even a season, man. We just don't know. And I think one of the ways you know that is in the fact that, you know, let's look at this off-season, Man. How many guys have ended up being extended to big money deals?
Granted, we just saw Mahomes. We just saw Myles Garrett and Chris Jones. But like, most of these guys aren't getting extended. Like, most of these franchise guys have signed their tenders.
CHARLES ROBINSON: Right.
TEREZ PAYLOR: Like, and these-- some of these are program guys.
CHARLES ROBINSON: Right.
TEREZ PAYLOR: And they're just signing their tenders because teams don't know what the 2021 cap is going to look like. They don't know, because if-- guess what. If the league and its players can't agree on how they're going to share this revenue hit, they're almost certainly to tank this year. That cap might fall. And it might fall significantly. And that's going to hurt.
