By Martin Rogers
FOX Sports Columnist
Sports are about to go through a big change, that’s pretty clear by now, and it’s going to be a confusing time.
Get ready for a new normal, or should it be a return to the old new normal? Or, in fact, there will be nothing normal at all and everyone will have to figure it out as we go along?
Remember last year, when COVID wreaked havoc on the NFL schedule, giving us games at times and days typically reserved for other activities?
Well, Monday afternoon football is back, and so is Tuesday night football. And don’t be surprised if Wednesdays, Saturdays, Fridays, and just about anything but breakfast on the grill come into play as the NFL tries to figure out how to push a riveting campaign full of parity, storylines, and unpredictability to the finish line.
It’s been written about in this column before, but it bears repeating now and will forever remain so: The fact that the long reign of the coronavirus is affecting professional and collegiate sports is a manifestly insignificant problem compared to the overwhelming impact it is having. has caused the pandemic. about humanity
But this has always been a column for an audience that has a deep love for these trivial games, and it’s only natural to view the way COVID is hitting sports as a microcosm of what’s happening in the rest of the world.
It takes a lot for NFL games to shift from their scheduled start times, so ingrained are they as part of America’s cultural and social spheres. You know when it happens that something very serious is going on.
We’ll leave the science to the experts, but this is obvious, and you know it: the Omicron variant is catching on with devastating speed. Those thoughts you might have had that this COVID thing was almost over? Unfortunately… not so fast.
Of course, it’s not just football that has had to quickly adapt and adjust.
The NBA implemented a modified regulation Sunday night that will allow teams affected by COVID to sign replacement players. The Brooklyn Nets, favorites to win the championship, have postponed their next two games, the Chicago Bulls have 10 players on protocols and Atlanta Hawks star Trae Young is among a growing number of players who have tested positive.
One of the hallmarks of Omicron is its high transmissibility, and some of the numbers on the most affected NFL teams are staggering.
More than 20 members of the Cleveland Browns were on the COVID list over the weekend, causing the team’s Saturday matchup with the Los Vegas Raiders to be moved to Monday. Throughout the league, more than 150 players were on the roster as of Sunday night.
The Browns, with a chance to move into a tie for first place in the AFC North with a win on Monday, must rely on third-string quarterback Nick Mullens and a group of reserves.
Tuesday’s slate — the Los Angeles Rams at Seattle Seahawks (7 p.m. ET on FOX) and the Washington Football Team at Philadelphia Eagles — was changed due to more than 20 cases for Los Angeles and Washington.
“The emergence of the Omicron variant is precisely the kind of change that warrants a flexible response,” NFL commissioner Roger Goodell wrote in a league-wide memo to teams.
The memo added: “Since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, our focus has been to play our games in a safe and responsible manner, in accordance with the best available public health and medical advice.”
In hockey, the Calgary Flames have been affected by at least 30 COVID cases among players. And in Europe, changes are underway.
The English Premier League suspended nine of its games, which will be played at a later date yet to be determined. As the UK prepares for a potential lockdown, a number of EPL clubs are in favor of shutting down the league and getting back up and running sometime in the new year.
It’s hard to know what to make of all this, and it’s impossible to predict what will come next. It’s frustrating and disappointing when games are played with depleted rosters due to COVID, but in sports, nothing compares to the sadness of postponements, or worse, league shutdowns.
It’s so irritating because of what it represents. Every lost game on the schedule indirectly means that suffering, hardship, and possible death are occurring on a drastic global scale.
It’s not much fun to think about or, honestly, to write about. But this is where we are, this is what we’re dealing with, and this is what we’re going to have to think about again.
One of these days, hopefully, we’ll be able to say that things are back to normal, if we can remember what normal feels like. But we’re not there yet, and suddenly it feels so much further away again.
Martin Rogers is a columnist for FOX Sports and author of the FOX Sports Insider Newsletter. You can subscribe to the newsletter here.
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