There has been no decision on the upcoming NFL preseason as some members of the NFL Players Association are in favor of playing no preseason games ahead of the 2020 NFL season, NFL Network's Mike Garafolo and Tom Pelissero reported Wednesday evening.
Previously, the expectation has been that the NFL would cut the four-game preseason schedule to just two games, however, the NFLPA has yet to sign off and there are some within union leadership who continue to question whether it's a smart move to play any preseason games at all, Garafolo and Pelissero added.
A board of representatives call on Thursday should shed further light upon the developing situation.
With training camp set to begin in late July, it follows a spring in which NFL players were largely away from team facilities and forced to work out in different ways due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The hope was a two-game slate would give players and teams a longer ramp-up period.
Among the concerns of a two-game slate from the perspective of players is the added exposure and risk for games that hold no consequence in the standings, Pelissero reported. Another concern is that some players would have just 23 days from their report date to their first preseason games, Pelissero said.
The union's perspective, via Garafolo, is that it wants "as much time as possible to get this thing under control and understand it as much as we possibly can."
