July 20 (UPI) — The NFL and its players’ union have reached an agreement on a coronavirus testing protocol for the first two weeks of training camp.
According to a memo obtained by ESPN and NFL Media on Monday, the league and the NFL Players Association will require daily testing for the opening two weeks of training camp. After that two-week period, the NFL will move its testing to every other day — if the positive test rate is below 5%.
If the positive test rate is higher than 5% after two weeks, the league will continue with daily COVID-19 testing until that number lowers. If the positivity rate reaches 5% or higher at any time, the NFL will go back to daily testing until it shrinks again.
“This is ongoing work,” Dr. Allen Sills, the NFL’s Chief Medical Officer, said Monday. “There’s no finish line with health and safety, and I think these protocols are living, breathing documents, which means they will change as we get new information. They will undoubtedly be changing over time, which is what we usually see in medicine.”
The agreement — reached Monday between the NFL and the players’ union — reflects a compromise between the sides. According to ESPN, the players were pushing for daily testing, while the owners proposed testing every other day.
“Our union has been pushing for the strongest testing, tracing and treatment protocols to keep our players safe,” the NFLPA said in a statement. “The testing protocols we agreed to are one critical factor that will help us return to work safely, and gives us the best chance to play and finish the season.”
The NFL and the union remained in negotiations Monday night on other matters, including the number of preseason games. According to ESPN and NFL Media, the league recently offered the players zero preseason games. The NFL previously canceled two of its four preseason weeks, but the players asked for all of them to be scrapped.
The agreement on a testing protocol came after a series of prominent NFL players took to social media Sunday in a coordinated effort to urge the league to listen to its experts’ guidelines on safely opening training camps during the coronavirus pandemic.
Rookies for the Houston Texans and Kansas City Chiefs — the teams set to play the Thursday night regular-season opener on Sept. 10 — were scheduled to report Monday. Players for all teams are set to report by July 28.
According to the collective bargaining agreement, players who don’t report to training camp could be subject to fines, forfeiture of salary and bonuses and the loss of an accrued season.
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