NFL favors 'ecosystem' model over 'bubble' to limit virus risk
Rather than building a "bubble" as Dr. Anthony Fauci suggested, the NFL is designing "ecosystem" models for each team in the belief that it will help prevent a coronavirus crisis throughout the league.
"What we're trying to do is mitigate risk for everybody inside what I call the 'team ecosystem,' which to me means the players, the coaches, the strength and conditioning staff, the medical staff - everybody who is going to be together throughout the course of the season," Dr. Allen Sills, the NFL's chief medical officer, told Axios Sports' Kendall Baker.
"All of those individuals are going to share the same risk of being infected because they're going be together all season. They're also going to share the same responsibility to each other to practice appropriate public health guidelines and minimize their own individual risk, which thereby minimizes the risk for the entire group."
Sills brought up the ecosystem after Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and leading voice throughout the pandemic, said football may not be feasible without the "bubble" strategy being implemented by the NBA and MLS.
Those two leagues are moving teams to Walt Disney World in Orlando, where they'll be kept away from the rest of the outside world as competition gets underway.
"'Bubble' isn't a medical term, so I prefer 'ecosystem' because I feel like it encompasses the fact that it's everybody who is together with shared responsibility and shared risk," Sills said.
Sills acknowledged that NFL health protocols could evolve quickly once training camps open, as the league will be able to assess how effectively its methods are keeping COVID-19 at bay.
"There are going to be a lot of changes in the way that we do things, from how we practice, to how we lay out our facilities, to how we travel, to how we organize sidelines and the on-field experience," he said.
Sills noted that he remains "very optimistic" the NFL will kick off in the fall, but admitted it probably won't be "football as usual."
"One of our athletic trainers probably expressed it best when he said, 'It's not going to feel normal because it's not going to be normal,'" Sills said.