NFL Notes:

• The negotiations between the union & the league are getting down to the nitty gritty of how to start the season:
  • Players will receive daily COVID-19 tests for the first two weeks of camp.
    • Players will need consecutive negative tests before they will be allowed into team facilities.
      • They will need to provide contact tracing information, and will have to wear proximity trackers while in team facilities, if what the Vikings are doing is considered the new standard.
    • Once a team infection rate drops below 5%, testing will then be every other day.
    • The NFL will foot the bill for all testing.
      • BioReference Laboratories and the NFL have a general deal for 120 tests per day, with a flat fee divided by the 32 teams.
        • Extra tests are available to each team at a rate of $125 per test.
  • The league has proposed a preseason with just one game, the week of August 27th – which would have been a normal year’s Week 3 of preseason.
    • The league had wanted two games, to allow each team to test out their COVID protocols; the players wanted no preseason games.

• Washington has hired a new Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) to work on their name change.
  • Terry Bateman has been involved in sports, entertainment and media for more than 40 years, having been a CEO at Barton Cotton, Dick Clark Productions and NTN Buzztime.
    • He was also the president of Snyder Communications’ marketing services division from 1994 to ’97.
  • This comes a tad late to distract from last week’s sexual harassment allegations against top [Redacteds] officials, but at this point you just have to announce things.
    • With even noted NFL toady Peter King actually out-loud calling for Dan Snyder to relinquish the team for the good of both the franchise and the league.
      • I’ll leave you with a – for PK – shockingly honest blockquote:

Daniel Snyder has no business owning an NFL team. First: He stinks at it. Second: Rightfully, he inspires nothing but enmity among his fan base. Third: No one wants to work for him, or with him; it’s a miracle he found a very good man, Ron Rivera, to coach his team. (Though if you want to be an NFL head coach, sometimes you take what you can get.) Fourth, and perhaps most maddening to any principled person: He avoids accountability at every turn. Nothing’s ever his fault.

Finally, Antonio Brown has decided he’s finished, again.

• He announced via Twitter that he is retiring from football.

https://twitter.com/AB84/status/1285277723326324740

• Teams are afraid to sign him until Roger Goodell has finished his investigation into Brown’s alleged misdeed from last season.
  • They want to know how long the suspension will be before they commit their limited salary cap space to a part-time player.

MXC Monday – Episode 204: “Reality TV vs. Animal Lovers”

“It’s a tumultuous tussle of the unscripted vs. the untamed.” It’s got both Window Smashers & Log Drop, two of the most painful games they use. All of the “Most Painful Eliminations” are delightful.

Tonight’s … entertainment?:

• USL Championship Soccer – 7:00PM | ESPN2
  • Hartford Athletic vs. Loudoun United. From Dillon Stadium in Hartford, CT.
•  Wrasslin’:
  • Monday Night Raw – 8:00PM | USA / Sportsnet360
    • The fallout from last night’s terrible, awful, not-very-good Extreme Rules event.
• The Arena – 8:00PM | TNT
  • NBA stars Charles Barkley, Dwyane Wade and Draymond Green head important societal conversations surrounding the COVID-19 outbreak, Black Lives Matter, systemic racism and other topics, with host Cari Champion.
• MLS Is Back:
  • Philadelphia Union vs Orlando City SC – 8:00 PM | TUDN / TUDN app / TSN
• Botched – 9:00PM | E! / E! Canada
  • “International Disasters”
    • Dr. Nassif and Dr. Dubrow look back at their globe trotting patients that traveled abroad and ended up with a surgical disaster. Including a woman with breast implants in her butt, another that wanted lipo and woke up with a surprise nose job and a tummy tuck patient whose doctor used a block of ice as anesthesia.

In theory, we are back to actual sports in two weeks. In practice, who the hell knows?