Took a long Sunday stroll through Downtown, amid sunny skies, 77-degree temps ... and barely a soul in sight.
Not high, not low ...
A desolate Downtown, yesterday. - DEJAN KOVACEVIC / DKPS... and the few I did spot were safely separated, straying to opposite ends of a sidewalk or even out into the middle of a strikingly silent street to avoid any semblance of human interaction. A couple of walkers wore masks. One along Sixth Street buried her mouth into her elbow with each passerby.
That's life now, isn't it?
We're told to stay inside, to steer clear of everyone else when we don't, to be prudent and patient, to encourage others to do likewise ... and we've legitimately got no idea when it'll end. Even among the busiest of us, our calendars have gone completely blank.
Except for this: Exactly 25 days from today, April 23, at a couple ticks past 8 p.m., Roger Goodell will speak the six most predictable words in all of professional sports: The Bengals are on the clock.
Imagine. Music to the ears on so, so many levels.
No, not the ominous prospect of Joe Burrow taking up long-term residence in the AFC North. But all the rest. The April-long buildup. The mocks. The speculation. The trades, such as the Steelers' seismic move for Devin Bush a year ago. The Mel Kiper impressions. The feeling that ... well, that football matters, and all the other normalcy that follows, not least of which is the players arriving into their new folds.
And uncomfortable as this is, I'll thank Goodell for that.
Sure, he should've been out as commissioner the moment he bungled Ray Rice, Spygate, Deflategate and every other Patriots-gate anyone can cite. He's been a terrible steward for the game, and it's a damned shame that all 32 NFL owners didn't dump him long ago. That goes double, by the way, for Art Rooney II, among Goodell's most ardent defenders.
But give the man this much due: He's brought the owners what they want more than anything. The league's total revenues for 2019 topped $16 billion, and there are already open, realistic projections of being at $25 billion by 2027 based on existing contracts. Compare that to Major League Baseball's $10.7 billion and the NHL's $5.09 billion, and it isn't a fair fight.
Most of that's fueled, unsurprisingly, by TV rights, which bring the NFL nearly $6 billion per year. Small wonder: The league delivered an incredible 45 of Nielsen's top 50 telecasts in 2019. And in an environment that's prioritizing live TV -- cable companies, in particular, covet it to ward off all the on-demand streaming services -- this is gold that glitters.
Put simply, football, and specifically the NFL, is our national pastime. Baseball hasn't been that for a while, and there are scary signs it's declining, not just in Pittsburgh. Hockey's got the great demographics with younger fans, and it tends to do really well ... where there's a franchise. But ratings are infinitesimal compared to football.
We're a football nation. We love football. And we especially love the NFL. Which, yes, I was writing even when people were weirdly proclaiming its demise a couple years ago amid the national anthem flap. People did get mad, but they sure didn't tune out.
And now, here we are facing a very different national period of strife, and football's sticking with us.
That's not to compare the NFL's reaction to coronavirus to the other leagues. The other leagues are having games impacted, which is a different stratosphere in this environment. But it is to applaud the NFL, and Goodell in particular, for sticking with us when it'd have been pretty easy to fold up for the near-term future.
When Goodell and the owners decided to proceed with the league year, there were a few -- if not a voluminous amount -- of critics that it'd look tone-deaf for teams to be doling out millions of dollars to free agency while people were losing jobs, even lives. The league persisted, no one was the worse for wear, and it gave those of us who love sports a bit a respite from the daily misery.
Similarly, even after Goodell and the owners made the glaringly obvious call to cancel the draft's on-location elements in Las Vegas, the league almost immediately announced it'd still conduct the actual event via conference call. Even when a committee comprised of seven GMs voted to recommend a delay, Goodell bit back. And hard.
"I'd be personally in favor of delaying the draft, so that we can get some of the work done that our scouts and our personnel people ordinarily do," Mickey Loomis, the Saints' GM, whined at the time. "And then just the logistics of trying to conduct the draft, with not having access to your draft rooms and your offices, creates a lot of logistic problems."
Yeah, really. Life's tough on Mickey.
That prompted Goodell to respond not only with a firmly worded reaffirmation that the event's still on -- proclaiming in a memo that the NFL's Management Council Executive Committee met Thursday and was "unanimous and unequivocal that the draft should go forward as scheduled" -- but else with a highly unusual memo directly to teams to basically shut up about this.
"Everyone recognizes that the public health conditions are highly uncertain and there is no assurance that we can select a different date and be confident that conditions will be significantly more favorable than they are today," Goodell wrote in a memo obtained by ESPN's Adam Schefter. "I also believe that the Draft can serve a very positive purpose for our clubs, our fans and the country at large, and many of you have agreed."
Yep. This hand's up. Way up.
That's not to be naive here, mind you. The NFL makes more than $10 million off the draft, it satisfies existing network obligations and, maybe most important to the league, it keeps the rest of the schedule unaffected for now. There are selfish motivations.
But there's still plenty to admire about pushing forward, and I'll bet I'm not the only one who'll remember it.
• Chris Carter will, too:
• It's not too late for Burrow to turn and run. I'm being serious. It's been far too long in the NFL since anyone's pulled a good, hard John Elway and avoided committing to a perpetual loser. NFL careers are too short to waste any significant portion of them with the Bengals.
"I'm not going to not play," Burrow told reporters at the NFL Scouting Combine last month in Indianapolis. "I'm a ballplayer. Whoever takes me, I'm going to go show up."
Ugh. I tried. Someone give him Connor McDavid's number.
• Everyone's still gushing over the Browns yet again winning the offseason, as if that's ever been a thing, and most of that's been predicated on the signing of Austin Hooper for four years and $44 million, with $23 million of that guaranteed.
I get it. Hooper was the best tight end in free agency, he's 25, and he totaled 146 catches the past two seasons with the Falcons. He's the real deal, and he'll present Baker Mayfield a formidable target over the middle to help take the heat off his gifted wide receivers.
But contrast that with the Steelers' approach: Vance McDonald's contract was renegotiated toward a $2.5 million cut over the next two seasons, now averaging $5.15 million. They then signed Eric Ebron out of free agency for two years and $12 million. So they got two talented tight ends, in essence, for the one the Browns got.
Cleveland gets the big headlines, but the Steelers improve their depth, limit their cap liability and double their chances of being hurt by injury, even if McDonald and Ebron both have had such issues.
Check back in a year, after the Browns finish third again and fire yet another head coach.
• Do the Steelers really need another inside linebacker to replace Mark Barron?
Or, since that depth role now likely will morph into run-stopping depth to support Vince Williams -- meaning Bush will assume more snaps as a sophomore -- might it not be smarter and cheaper to further fortify the line with a true run-stopping nose tackle?
Meaning not Big Dan McCullers?
Just a thought. Old-school nose tackles are having a hard time finding work.
"I think the whole hockey world, well especially Alberta, would want that really badly..." ?
- Leon Draisaitl on an Oilers/Flames 1st round match-up, if the post-season started today.
FULL INTERVIEW ➡️ https://t.co/WM6WmVKCeG pic.twitter.com/gLrU68VESR
— Tim and Sid (@timandsid) March 7, 2020
• Since I mentioned McDavid, might as well bring up a rare spectacular quote from the NHL's next great player: "I don't think we can just step into the playoffs and Game 1, it's Calgary coming to Edmonton, and guys are running around trying to kill each other that haven't played for two months. It'll end up Stockton Heat vs. Bakersfield Condors if that's the case. We want to keep the guys healthy."
You know, I hadn't really thought of it that deeply, but he's got a point. Imagine going from nothing in months right into Game 1 ... if it's Oilers vs. Flames. Or, for that matter, Penguins vs. Flyers, since that's the existing matchup.
• On the other hand, there was this from the Flames' Mark Giordano on the same call over the weekend: "If we can ever get back to playing, it's going to be one of the best playoffs ever. You're going to be playing the best version of every team."
Amazing to consider, but so true. Add to that potentially shorter series with heightened pressure on each, and it's through the roof.
Scott Boras. - GETTY• Advice to all agents everywhere: Be like Scott Boras when it comes to making money for clients, but don't be like Boras when it comes to ... uh, whatever he'd intended with a weird complaint to USA Today about Major League Baseball slashing its draft rounds from 40 to as few as five.
"For owners to do this to these young men, who are so passionate about baseball, is something that they need to examine their conscience," Boras began. "More kids will have to go to college. And anyone not taken among the top 200 players will have to go back to school."
Oh, the humanity. On full scholarships, no less.
"I'm a big proponent of college," he continued, "so I want these kids to get their education, but what really bothers me is that kids outside the fifth round deserve their bonuses."
Right. And the agents have no stake in that.
"I just think in this climate and this environment, you should keep the status quo."
Meaning coronavirus, for crying out loud. He went there.
"In reality, you're going to be surrounding established players with less-caliber players now. They need 10 rounds to fill their minor-leagues teams with talent. A sixth-round high school talent is a good player. An eighth-rounder out of college is a good player. They can be All-Star players. Now, they'll be back in school."
Yeah, with no chance of ever reaching the majors if they go back into NCAA ball for a spell.
I'll stop now. It's painful.
• We'll get there. We will.