Betting on an unpredictable NFL season and your daily virus update

BETTING ON AN UNPREDICTABLE NFL SEASON

By STEVE KING

This is not an anti-betting piece.

But it could be.

Though I don’t do it, I’m not against gambling, including sports betting, in any way, shape or form. It’s legal in many places and it’s your money, so do with it as you wish.

However, I wonder why in the world anyone with any bit of sanity would bet on NFL games this season, including those involving the Browns. The NFL is hard enough to predict. What – and who – looks good in the offseason, through training camp and in the preseason, suddenly doesn’t look so good by the middle of the second quarter of the opener. And the reverse is true, too.

But with this coronavirus and the way it has already affected the NFL – reducing training camp to a laughingstock and cancelling the preseason, just to name two – and will no doubt continue to affect the league through the regular season, how can anyone guess, let alone know, what will happen in these games?

Injuries? Unpredictable.

The growth rate of young players and the decay rate of older ones? Unpredictable.

How new coaches and new players will fit in with their new teams? Unpredictable.

Those are always givens. They are part of every season.

But figuring out which players and coaches will test positive for COVID-19 and will be sidelined? Even more unpredictable and nothing to be betting on.

The other unpredictable aspects of the game – the constants since the league began 100 years ago — are fun to try to figure out. But guessing when people might get sick – even seriously so, possibly to the point of having their livelihoods and even lives threatened – is not fun. To even partake in such speculation is sad and unethical.

But some people will still do it. It’s part of who they and what they are. It’s how they pass the time. It’s their entertainment.

You can bet on it.

HERE’S YOUR DAILY VIRUS UPDATE

Get used to it, Browns fans.

Plenty more of this type of stuff is headed our way. We will be hearing more stories like the one the other day concerning positive COVID-19 tests that caused the Browns to almost cancel their training camp practice on Sunday.

At this time of year, we’re used to hearing about the progress – or lack thereof – of players, the injury situations of other players and just all the interesting things that happen at camp. But not anymore, for those are second-page, even second-day, stories. The coronavirus is the story – the biggest story and really, the only story – anytime it wants to rear its ugly head.

It’s not fun. It’s not football. And it’s not easy to digest sometimes. But it is the new normal, and probably will be for a long, long time.

On the other hand, the last thing the practice-challenged Browns need right now is to lose another practice. They need to be working, not sitting. They are virtually out of any meaningful benefits of virtual learning. That ship has sailed.

But it’s impossible for that to happen with the virus lurking – possibly – in every nook and cranny of Browns Headquarters in Berea. It’s better to be safe than sorry. The Browns can’t take any chances. Again, missing work is a disaster, but missing players – possibly key ones, and possibly for a long period of time – is even more disastrous. It could bring this team to its knees, literally and figuratively.

This is the NFL in 2020. Nothing has been able to stop this league in its 100-year lifetime, not wars or public tragedies, or anything, really.

But the coronavirus has, and will continue to get in the way whenever it feels like it.

It’s why I said the other day that predicting how this season will go – if at all – is impossible.

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