Will the Broncos and other teams begin training camp on time? Here's what we know

The NFL continues to point to July 28 as the date for which most of its teams — including the Broncos — can report for training camp. And in a vacuum, the NFL Players Association cannot do much to change that.

“Remember, the league is management,” said DeMaurice Smith, the excecutive director of the NFL Players Association, on a conference call with media Friday. “Just like somebody who owns a plant, they have the exclusive right of [determining] when does it open, when does it close, what our hours are, blah blah blah, blah blah blah. The CBA [collective bargaining agreement] dictates wages, hours, working conditions and generally — and explicitly in this case — we’ve made provisions about being in position to approve the infectious-disease response plans for the teams.”

And that’s the key: the ability to approve the protocols for keeping the players and staff as safe as possible with the COVID-19 pandemic raging —and spiking in multiple NFL markets, including Miami, Tampa, Phoenix and Los Angeles.

“We have players — as we have spoken to our membership — who are nervous about flying from a relative safe location directly into a hotspot, with their families, with their kids, with their wives,” said NFLPA president J.C. Tretter, a member of the Cleveland Browns. And that’s a major concern with stuff going on in Houston, as well [as] Miami — how safe is that?”

And that could lead to competitive-balance issues. Based on current trends and data, it would be relatively safe for the Broncos to open camp. This would also be true for a slew of other teams — particularly in northern cities.

But if Sun Belt states like California, Arizona, Texas and Florida go into lockdown mode as cases spike, then the NFL will have a decision to make. Does the league adhere to its long-time commitment to competitive balance? Or does it let some teams start camp while others could be forced to wait if gatherings of more than 20 people are not permitted?

Thursday, NFL team doctors gathered with NFLPA officials for a conference call and largely endorsed the idea of opening camps on time.

“The doctors last night on the call said — with a couple of reservations — that they felt that it was safe to open training camp, and they provided their medical reasons,” Smith said. “Some of the things, we agreed with. Some of the things, we may not agree to. But overall, they gave their medical opinion that it was safe to open training camp, and that’s where we are.”

What else did we learn from Smith and Tretter?

WHAT ABOUT NEXT YEAR’S CAP?

Without a resolution that spreads out the impact of a one-year loss of at least $3 billion of revenue league-wide, teams would be forced into massive restructures and roster purges unseen in the modern NFL.

“If there is a dramatic decrease in revenue for this year — and some estimates are that it could be $70 million per club — as an impact on player costs, that means the salary cap next year could be something around $120 million,” Smith said.

This would drop the salary cap back to a figure unseen since 2012, when it was at $120.6 million. It increased $2.4 million in 2013, then by an average of $10.74 million in each of the next seven years. At no point from 2014 through 2020 did the salary cap ever increase by less than $9.99 million.

“That would mean that a number of players could be cut, a lot of players that have salaries that would push a team above that salary cap would either be forced to renegotiate their contracts or they would be cut. So that would be option A.”

In the realm of football economics and team building, this would be a cataclysm.

Twenty teams have more money committed for 2021 than the Broncos, who currently stand at $159.4 million in commitments for that year, per OvertheCap.com. Getting down to $120 million would necessitate some drastic moves, and even with a young offensive core mostly on rookie contracts, the Broncos could lose some key components.

Here’s an example of what that whittling could look like without restructures — and it would involve a painful move.

• LB Von Miller: $18 million cap savings; $4.125 million dead money
• CB A.J. Bouye: $13 million cap savings; no dead money
• OT Ja’Wuan James: $8 million of cap savings, $6 million dead money

That gets the Broncos within $400,000 of a $120 million cap. But then rookie contracts must be accounted for, as well as any necessary re-signings or additions, which means another $9 to $10 million of salary would have to be excised.

“Option A” is painful and unnecessary as long as television and streaming contracts signed to start in 2022 and beyond can be a robust source of income, as expected.

Which leads us to “option B.”

“Option B is that both sides try to work through estimates of what the decline would be and try to find a way to avoid a precipitous drop in the salary cap for next year, and therefore protect contracts, players and also protect their benefits,” Smith said.

It behooves both the players and teams to figure out a solution. Teams have planned for a cap of approximately $208 million.

“The CBA obligates us to negotiate in good faith over downturns in revenue that will impact the salary cap for the following year,” Smith said.

But that still isn’t the top priority right now.

MEDICAL FIRST, THEN ECONOMIC

“Where [the salary cap] falls in the grand scheme of things — the priority is still on the health and safety issues that we face,” Tretter said. “The economics will be taken care of, but we can’t get to the economics until we make sure our players are going to be protected this year, and the health and safety protocols are set up.

Added Smith: “There is a straight line between getting the health and safety question right, getting the overall economics right and how that relates to contracts, opt-outs, [injured reserve], short-term IR, whether COVID is a workplace injury, whether it would constitute a failed physical, there is literally a straight line that starts with getting the health and safety issues right that then are inextricably tied to all of those other issues.”

These are crucial matters. Will COVID-19 be considered a non-football illness, which would mean that a team would not have to pay the player who suffers from it and goes on the non-football illness loss? Will a separate injured-reserve list be created for players who test positive and must sit out multiple weeks?

And what about players who opt out of the season? What becomes of their contracts and the guaranteed money?

Rookies are set to report next week, and there still appear to be more questions than firm answers.