Omar Kelly: Sacrifices will have to be made for NFL to start — and get through full season

Sports teams often talk about sacrifice to the point the topic has become cliche.

Sacrifice is often cited as a key element for teams that win championships because everyone must minimize themselves and put their egos and agenda on the back burner for the greater good of the team.

A great player is supposed to sacrifice an opportunity because a teammate is in a better position. A great leader will sacrifice his or her own glory if it helps the team triumph.

According numerous NFL players, pulling off the 2020 football season will require a next-level degree of sacrifices because of the complications created by the coronavirus pandemic.

That means every decision player’s make — from where to eat dinner to who is sleeping in their bed — could have life or death consequences for those who have decided to participate in the 2020 season, and their family members.

That’s why Dolphins safety Bobby McCain, a team captain, suspects it will be the team that takes the most precautions to avoid contracting COVID-19 that will have the most success this year.

And to get there McCain pointed out it will require personal sacrifice in every aspect of a player’s life.

“You’ve got to hold your brothers accountable, as far as stepping out and going to dinner with a lot of people, going to nightclubs, going to bars, being with different women,” said McCain this past week. “Whatever you bring home, you’re bringing to the family. It’s definitely going to take a lot of discipline.

“The most disciplined team will end up playing the most games and being the healthiest at the end of the day.”

While the world experienced a similar pandemic in 1918 when the Spanish flu infected an estimated 500 million people and claimed nearly 50 million victims during its two-year run, few expected anything could drastically alter our way of life today, and complicate daily health on a regular basis.

Those in the medical community, and our national and local government are making rules, regulations and guidelines up as they go, attempting to problem solve to create a new normal for the world.

So don’t be surprised if the sports world is doing the same for the foreseeable future, and we’ve just got to be patient while this gets figured out.

But what we shouldn’t do is finger point, and continue to foster division, which seems to be happening far too often.

MLB commissioner Rob Manfred put the pressure on the players and teams to do a better job of following the regulations put in place by MLB and the MLBPA because of the COVID-19 outbreak that hit the Miami Marlins, who had 18 players and two coaches test positive this past week, and the St. Louis Cardinals, who have had three players test positive with one additional player producing an inconclusive test.

“It is what the public health experts have been saying from the beginning about this, that there is no one big magic fix,” Manfred told the Associated Press. “The protocols are a series of little things that people need to do. We’ve had some problems. In order to be better, it’s another series of little things. I think it’s peer pressure. I think it’s players taking personal responsibility. … I think it’s us managing more aggressively.”

The fear of exposing players to more unnecessary risks could end the baseball season prematurely — and keep in mind that’s a non-contact sport.

Just imagine what could be in store for football, where players crash their bodies into one another every snap of every practice, and then two teams full of players on offense and defense do it for 100-plus snaps a game for at least 16 weeks in the NFL.

If football teams struggle with outbreaks, the NFL might have to take a bubble approach, following the lead of the NBA, NHL, WNBA and MLS, quarantining themselves from the world.

Would players be willing to subject themselves to isolation from their family and the outside world for four to five months to get a 16-game regular season in?

“That’s a tough question to ask anybody, especially (those) who have families and stuff,” said Dolphins offensive linemen Jesse Davis, who is married but doesn’t have kids. “For me, if that’s what we have to do, then that’s what we’d have to do. I’d definitely do it just to play the game, and obviously help this organization play football. But yeah, that’s a tough one to ask.

“I don’t think there’s a right or wrong answer to that depending on the circumstances of an individual.”

It comes down to the level of sacrifice each individual, team, and the league is willing to make to make football happen.

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