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Raiders owner leaning toward games without fans

LAS VEGAS — With the NFL leaving it up to individual teams and/or local municipality guidelines as to how many, if any, fans can attend games, Las Vegas Raiders owner Mark Davis is leaning toward not having any fans attend games at Las Vegas’ new Allegiant Stadium this season.

If no fans are admitted, Davis said, he will not attend games, either. As the lone dissenting vote on the league owners’ recent decision to tarp off the first eight rows of seats from the field in each stadium and cover them with advertisements, Davis said the Raiders’ idea of leaving the seats for fans and erecting hockey-style plexiglass around the bottom of the stadium to separate fans from players on the sidelines was “shot down” before the vote.

“No one fan is more important to me than another, no matter if they paid for a $75,000 PSL or a $500 PSL,” Davis told ESPN.com Sunday night. “They’re all Raider fans to me. My mindset today is no fans [should attend games].

“I don’t even know if it’s safe to play. ‘Uncertainty’ is the word.”

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Regardless of fans at games, Davis said he sees three options for the NFL at the moment:

1. Go on as planned, with teams reporting for training camp over the next week, and see what happens.

2. Delay the start of the season until November and go to a 12-game season, cancelling each team’s four interconference games. (For the Raiders, that would mean games at the Carolina Panthers and Atlanta Falcons and home games against the New Orleans Saints and Tampa Bay Buccaneers.)

3. Cancel the 2020 season entirely.

“Everything is up in the air with the [COVID-19] virus and how it will affect our league and season,” Davis said, adding that his frustration about taking away the first eight rows of seats was exacerbated by the league’s leaving the decision on fans to the individual teams after an offseason of what Davis called “equity” among teams.

Having no offseason programs and only virtual meetings was based on “a worse-case scenario,” Davis said, so every team was in the same situation.

With the Raiders having sold out for the season, they have no room to move fans from those bottom sections.

“That’s the Black Hole,” Davis said. “It’s the people that want to be in the front row. Boisterous fans … now I’ve got to tell 8,000 people that helped build this thing that they can’t come to a game? I don’t have 8,000 seats to move them to. We’re sold out.

“The optics are terrible: advertising on top of seats belonging to people you’re telling they can’t come to the game. I’d rather have everybody pissed at me than just one person. I’ve got to make it up to them, and I will. This is all about safety and equity.”

The Raiders, who called Oakland, California, home since moving back there in 1995 after 13 seasons in Los Angeles, are in the midst of their move to Southern Nevada.

Davis said with no fans, it will be a “soft opening” for the team’s $1.9 billion, 65,000-seat domed stadium near the Las Vegas Strip, with an eye on going bigger in 2021, should the coronavirus pandemic subside by then.

“We want our inaugural season to be something special,” he said. “I don’t even know if we’ll light the [Al Davis] torch. These are all potentials and respecting all.”

In saying that he would stay away from games if he decides to exclude fans from Allegiant Stadium, Davis said only people “essential to the production of the game” should be in attendance.

“The only thing I’m essential for is after the game, yelling at Jon [Gruden],” Davis joked of the Raiders’ coach. “I can do that over the phone.”

NFL

Players blitz NFL with tweets about safe return

NFL players took to Twitter on Sunday in a coordinated effort to urge the NFL to listen to its experts’ guidelines on safely opening training camps amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Many of the players used the hashtag #WeWantToPlay to accompany their tweets.

NFL Players Association president JC Tretter tweeted: “What you are seeing today is our guys standing up for each other and for the work their union leadership has done to keep everyone as safe as possible. The NFL needs to listen to our union and adopt the experts’ recommendations #wewanttoplay”

Sense a trend…. pic.twitter.com/KJQqo7nKSI

— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) July 19, 2020

The New Orleans Saints’ Michael Thomas urged NFL commissioner Roger Goodell to follow the example of NBA commissioner Adam Silver to bring football back safely.

“If Adam Silver can respect the voices and protect his NBA players why can’t @nflcommish do the same? Listen to your players,” Thomas tweeted.

The Cleveland Browns’ Myles Garrett was among players to say that there won’t be a season if the NFL doesn’t “do their part to keep players healthy.”

“If the NFL doesn’t do their part to keep players healthy there is no football in 2020. It’s that simple. #WeWantToPlay,” he said.

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Dan Orlovsky loves the NFL stars calling out the league for lack of safety protocols before training camp and says the NFL needs to be proactive instead of reactive.

The Houston Texans’ J.J. Watt was the first player to tweet his concerns, doing so on Thursday.

On Wednesday, the NFLPA’s executive committee held a conference call with nearly 50 of its highest-profile players intended to inform the membership on where things stood ahead of training camp, one player on the call told ESPN’s Jeff Darlington. But that call took some turns as players felt the NFLPA couldn’t answer some of the simplest questions they were asking.

Among others, Watt vocalized the need to gain more clarity on the NFL’s plan for player health and safety. As such, several players asked the NFLPA how they could assist and what their message should be. Essentially, one player said, the call became a galvanizing moment that has led to Sunday’s social media blitz. Since that call, players have been working with the NFLPA to work on ways to create a unified voice.

On Saturday, when the NFL sent an email to each team informing them that training camp would start on time, one member of the NFLPA executive committee told ESPN they viewed the NFL’s action as a public relations attempt to quell fans’ concerns due to a growing sentiment from players — including Watt and Patrick Mahomes — who have expressed frustrations about the lack of clarity from the league.

The NFLPA source said this public back-and-forth is expected to eventually lead to more expansive meetings between the league and the NFLPA in the coming days to gain a better understanding about how the league plans to handle aspects like practices, testing, opt-out clauses and other factors that players believe have not been properly agreed upon.

Among the NFLPA’s requests to the NFL are daily testing, no preseason games and a “ramp up” period (21 days of strength and conditioning, 10 days of non-padded practices and 14 days of “contact acclimation”) once they report to camp.

NFLPA executive committee member Sam Acho said on Sunday Morning on ESPN Radio that the NFLPA received a counterproposal from the NFL on Saturday night, but the league still hasn’t addressed most of the players’ concerns and is completely ignoring the advice of the doctors it hired to come up with a plan to safely start the season.

“… and so as of now we are telling players to get ready and stay ready, but if the NFL doesn’t come up with these plans, you cannot show up,” he said.

According to the CBA, players who do not report to training camp could be subject to fines, forfeiture of bonuses and salary and the loss of an accrued season.

Acho said the NFL needs to give players a plan on how games might be canceled or delayed because of a coronavirus outbreak and also must address the financial ramifications players might face. He also accused the NFL of waiting to apply pressure on the players instead of coming up with a plan.

“The owners, under the CBA or outside the CBA, their obligation is to provide a safe working environment for the players. … So if they don’t do that, we can’t play. It’s as simple as that,” he said.

Rookies for the Texans and Kansas City Chiefs, the teams scheduled to play the Thursday night regular-season opener on Sept. 10, have been told to report Monday. The full-squad reporting date for the vast majority of teams is July 28.

NFL

Antonio Brown? Josh Gordon? Examining their likelihood with the Seahawks

Jul 17, 2020

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Josh Gordon made a good impression in his five games with the Seahawks last season. Ben Margot/AP

Gordon already has some familiarity with Wilson and Brian Schottenheimer’s offense. The wideout’s work ethic and personability made a strong impression on the organization over his five games with Seattle last season, during which he caught seven passes for 139 yards. And while there’s the possibility of Gordon suffering another relapse that leads to another suspension — his December suspension was his sixth since the 2013 season and the fifth for some form of substance abuse, according to ESPN Stats & Information research — that would be like losing a player to an injury (but no longer being on the hook for his salary).

The risk with Brown is a repeat of the monthlong fiasco that ended his tenure with the Raiders, before he played a game for them. Or a repeat of the behind-the-scenes antics that wore out his welcome in Pittsburgh. Or something worse.

The size of the risk would depend on the size of his contract. Because the more guaranteed money it contains, the more punitive it could be in regard to the cap for the team to move on should he fall out of line.

It would be one thing if Brown were available on the cheap. In that scenario, maybe the Seahawks could live with certain parts of his past — the frozen feet and uncertified helmet debacles, going AWOL and confronting his general manager — knowing they’d have an all-world talent at a bargain price and could painlessly cut ties at the first sign of trouble. The hope would be that Brown realizes he is on a short leash and acts accordingly.

But even then, there are the other alleged parts of Brown’s past. It’s hard to imagine an organization that dealt with the fallout from the Clark pick signing a player who stands accused of sexual assault.

The Seahawks considered Brown when he was released by the Raiders, then passed on him two weeks later after he was let go by the New England Patriots.

Seattle’s approach with Tramaine Brock in 2017 might be instructive in this case. The team kept a close eye on the cornerback for months that offseason and only signed him once his charge of domestic violence was dropped. The woman later said through her attorney that the altercation in question was verbal.

It might take a similar turn with Brown for the Seahawks’ interest in him to go any further. Unless that happens, don’t hold your breath on seeing him catch passes from Wilson that count.

NFL

Players ask Congress to address education issues

The Players Coalition is calling on Congress to pass a bill addressing education inequality that has been highlighted and expanded by the coronavirus pandemic.

In a letter, the players write that without Congressional action, education inequality for prekindergarten through high school students is “likely to be compounded in the coming year and beyond as state and local budgets deteriorate because of increased state and local COVID-related costs and steeply declining revenues due to COVID-related economic disruption.”

The players promoted a pair of bills, one passed by the House of Representatives in May and one proposed in the Senate in late June, that would provide billions of dollars in education funding.

Among the provisions the players are seeking in an education package are significant additional funding for elementary and secondary education, continued legal protections for marginalized students and addressing digital access for students.

COVID-19 exacerbated systemic problems in our schools. Absent significant Congressional action, education inequities are likely to continue growing. Today, we wrote to Senate leadership urging them to pass a COVID-19 relief package with crucial education provisions for our youth. pic.twitter.com/eqUYswaaoy

— PlayersCoalition (@playercoalition) July 17, 2020

The Players Coalition tweeted a copy of the letter Friday morning. It is addressed to Sens. Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer and signed by nearly 200 current and former professional athletes.

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“As Players Coalition members, we understand the importance of teamwork and never giving up — especially when prospects are bleak,” the players wrote. “We urge the Senate to work with the House to team up to enact these provisions, because giving up is not an option for our children of color and low-income children, or the future of our nation.”

McConnell, the Senate majority leader, is poised to release the Republicans’ $1 trillion coronavirus relief package as soon as next week. That plan is a counteroffer to the sweeping $3 trillion proposal that House Democrats approved in May, before the latest spike in coronavirus cases and hot spots.

The Players Coalition was founded in 2017. Its stated goal is “making an impact on social justice and racial equality at the federal, state and local levels through advocacy, awareness, education, and allocation of resources.”

In June, the Players Coalition gathered more than 1,400 signatures for a letter to Congress supporting a bill to end qualified immunity, which makes it difficult to sue police officers for brutality.

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