The Jolly Roger: A 2020 NFL season without football may be reality

This offseason has featured many wins for the Buccaneers. They ditched the uniforms many fans were against, they signed a future Hall of Famer in Tom Brady to lead the team, they added his former tight end in Rob Gronkowski, they had a successful draft, and they made sure to bring back some key pieces from their defense to keep the continuity.

It has all added up to become one of the most anticipated regular seasons in history where everyone from fans to media agree this could be a big year for Tampa Bay.

But reality won’t be that, nor will it be that they may not be successful.

Reality may be no regular season wins because there won’t be any football played. Period.

The coronavirus pandemic has impacted many lives and our way of living. When real situations hit, many of us use different ways to deal. We spend time with our families, we read books, watch movies, play video games, and many, many people use sports to escape and use it as a distraction to get away from what is going on in the world. But sports has not been around and there are a lot of fans wondering when that part of their lives will be returning.

Unfortunately, the return of sports may not happen anytime soon. Football, may not happen.

The United States government has been trying to get a leg up on the pandemic and re-open the country. A piece of that ever intriguing puzzle is getting a vaccine to fight the virus ready to go. While CNN notes that experts suggest to brace for a year without sports, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease and the leading public health expert on the government’s coronavirus task force, says that the vaccine still won’t be enough for sports to resume anytime soon.

“Safety, for the players and for the fans, trumps everything,” Fauci said via The New York Times. “If you can’t guarantee safety, then unfortunately you’re going to have to bite the bullet and say, ‘We may have to go without this sport for this season.’

Reality here is, that is perhaps the best approach.

“I would love to be able to have all sports back,” Fauci added. “But as a health official and a physician and a scientist, I have to say, right now, when you look at the country, we’re not ready for that yet.”

Some time in March, I got some information where several media members were told they may have to “prepare for a season without football” which I shared with our Bucs Nation staff. Basically, it was just to say that it’s time to start thinking creatively when it comes to coverage in case the NFL season is a no-go for 2020. It wasn’t anything major at the time. But with each passing day, that is now nearing reality.

Well, experts think that’d probably be best, forgo sports in 2020.

For Bucs fans, they are hoping that football will begin as originally hoped with no delays so they can once again lean on what they can to take their minds off of what has plagued the world and be able to watch a Tampa Bay team with some high expectations. Yes, it will be fun and intriguing to watch Brady under center in pewter. But sometimes we have to realize that there are bigger things here than watching Brady dropping dimes to Mike Evans and Chris Godwin in the end zone.

Sometimes, we have to set aside our own feelings and desires and realize that sports need to be benched. This is one of those times.

This is reality.