If you saw this morning the Cardinals became the third MLB team to have a large outbreak of Covid in just the FIRST week of MLB starting its abbreviated season. This is obviously not good news seeing that baseball is a non-contact sport where players are naturally "distanced" from one another while on the field.
Couple things being observed that may provide a glimpse into what may happen when football begins.
1. Clearly the issues with baseball have more to do with the dugout/locker room where the virus is going to spread rapidly, rather than players infecting players from the opposing team. So the threat in baseball is more one-dimensional. With football, since its a very close quarters high contact sport, the threat will come from within and from the outside. With 22 players on the field for every play and with over 100 players/personnel/staff along each sideline and in the locker rooms one player who is an asymptomatic carrier can infect a dozen people during a game and those people go on to affect more team mates in the locker rooms. Anyway, this is obvious how things could get so much more out-of-hand in football because of the issue of number of players on a team and extreme close contact.
2. MLB is not taking a "next man up" approach. In other words, if multiple players on a team get infected, they are cancelling/postponing games, not just sticking in backup players and moving on. Which brings up an interesting question. If 10 or 15 players on a team get infected right before a road game, is the opposing team going to let the game happen? Are they going to invite you to come or are they going to force the game to be postponed/cancelled?
3. Baseball has 60 games. Football has 10. So, how many cancellations have to occur before everyone says, "it's no longer worth the risk" and cancelling the rest of the season
