GREEN BAY — In the power rankings of real-life inconveniences created by the COVID-19 pandemic, NFL teams being unable to go through their normal offseason sessions surely would rank pretty low.
Nevertheless, the league and the NFL Players Association acknowledged the obvious earlier this week: Offseason programs, which had been set to start on Monday for teams with new head coaches and were slated to begin on April 20 for teams with returning head coaches, will not in fact be held — not even virtually, for the time being.
With their facilities still closed to both the public and team personnel — a directive that has forced the April 23-25 NFL draft to be done remotely with no team personnel allowed to work from their offices, including Green Bay Packers general manager Brian Gutekunst and coach Matt LaFleur — it was thought perhaps the league would allow coaches to interact with their under-contract players via video conferencing programs such as FaceTime, Zoom and Microsoft Teams.