John Delach

As of today, Wednesday, December 2, 2020, the National Football League, our Nation’s preeminent sports monopoly has been able to complete eleven weeks of their 2020 season  despite the COVID-19 virus pandemic. Incredible! Last September, when the season started, I was convinced that because football is the ultimate team close contact sport, the players interaction in practice and during games would spread infection at such an alarming rate that the season would be ruined by Week Six at the latest of the NFL’s 17-week season.

Instead, the NFL’s big brains managed to keep the schedule alive. Frankly, I am amazed that so few players and staff have tested positive resulting in the small number of games that have had to be postponed or shifted around. I expected that these disruptions would cascade into a free for all as more and more teams would be affected. Instead the disruptions have been minimal.

Unfortunately, currently there is an exception that could throw a monkey wrench into the works. This crisis involves a contest between the Pittsburg Steelers, the leaders of their division with a record of 11 wins and no losses and their rivals, the Baltimore Ravens with a record of six wins and four losses. (Note, to date, the Ravens have only played ten games meaning they are already one game in arears.)

Because of multiple infections on both teams, but mostly on the Ravens, this game was originally postponed from Thanksgiving, November 26 to Sunday, November 29, then to Tuesday night, December 1 and now to this afternoon, Wednesday, December 2nd. If this game is ultimately cancelled, it may become the trigger that causes the season to unravel. If that happened, it would force the league to determine how the playoffs will be structured.

Trust me, regardless of what happens to the regular season, including shutting it down, the NFL powers will do anything that they must do to protect and even expand a complete playoff schedule. Their goal will be to maximize playoff revenue from network television and from  satellite and streaming services too. 

This brings me to my NFL cliché: “If the season ended today…”

“If the season ended today my Football Giants would be the Eastern Conference Champions who would host a wild-card team in our home stadium.”

To explain the insanity of this statement, you must understand that as of today, the Giants’ record is four wins and seven losses. Obviously, that is not a good record. But the Giants play in the NFC East with three other teams, the Dallas Cowboys, Philadelphia Eagles and the Washington Football Team formerly known as the Redskins. The division is so weak that the press often refers to it as, “the NFC Least.”

As of today, this is the standings and the team records in the NFL East are as follows:

Football Giants: 4-7

The Washington Football Club (formerly known as the Redskins):4-7: (Giants win tie breaker)

Eagles:               3-7-1 (Tie)

Cowboys:           3-8

The entire division is pathetic, a fraud, a grifter, a Fuquay, the fat shuffle, chicanery, a con, a hustle, a sting, a hoax a scam or, my favorite, bamboozlement.

Use whatever football cliché you like to explain this distortion in the NFL’s universe like: “That’s why they play the game,” or “On any given Sunday, any given team can beat any other given team,” to establish the justification you need to explain this extraordinary phenomenon.

Even if the Ravens vs Steelers game is finally played as now scheduled the odds against completing the season will grow greater and greater as winter looms ahead. Of course, this precludes the thought that the big bad NFL will obtain enough of the vaccinations to immunize every team.  Now, I’m not naïve enough not to believe the NFL could pull this off. They could, but the hue and cry from the masses would be so loud and intense, that even Commissioner Roger Goodell, would wilt under that assault.

But regardless of how much of the season is completed, “the least from the East” will produce a division winner that will not have a winning record.

Three of the four teams have lost their starting quarterback and the remaining team, the Eagles, are so unhappy with their starter that they plan to bench him. Nobody, I say nobody can predict who will be the last team standing as king of the NFC East!

With six games remaining in the regular season, I predict the best record that one of the un-fabulous four can produce will be 7 wins and 9 losses and it may only be 6 and 10.

Two words: Pathetic and ludicrous.