Dallas Cowboys: Facility has Re-opened – Football to Follow?

The Dallas Cowboys have opened the doors to The Star in Frisco and begin front office football operations and more

On Tuesday teams like the Dallas Cowboys were given approval from the NFL to open their facilities, provided their local state governments allow it. Front office staff (up to 75 people) and select players (particularly those who were already in rehab) can reenter facilities.

Normally by this point the Dallas Cowboys would have been chin deep in their local offseason program. Safety precautions have wisely made the offseason program a virtual affair. Even the rookie mini camp was cancelled in the wake of the current COVID-19 pandemic.

Things seem to be progressing forward so the billion dollar question is, “when will the Dallas Cowboys play football again?”

We should actually call it the $16 billion question since that’s roughly what the NFL made in revenue last season. And it’s that tremendous sum that all but assures of the Dallas Cowboys will return as soon as safely possible.

As you probably heard, Governor Abbott recently opened up professional sports in the state of Texas effective May 31st. Major sports markets like California and New York have recently been given encouragement from their respective governors to get pro sports rolling as soon as possible as well.

NFL chief doctor Allen Sills says the challenge facing the league when it re-opens will be diagnosing and treating players when the inevitable positive test arises. It’s safe to say a uniformed protocol will be instituted across the the NFL and teams will not be given free reign.

Another factor holding the Dallas Cowboys back is the NFL’s efforts to keep things fair across the board. The league doesn’t want teams going back to business as usual if all the teams can’t do so. Most of the players and all of the coaches are on the outside looking in right now, meaning the Dallas Cowboys don’t have much of an advantage right now over their quarantined brethren.

The NFL isn’t as eager to pool their games in regional “bubble cities” like MLB and NBA seem to be seriously contemplating. Even if it’s a fanless affair, owners have indicated they’d rather play at their home for home games than travel to a neutral site.

With no (or a significantly reduced amount) of fans attending games this fall, the landscape changes for the Dallas Cowboys earliest games. Los Angeles and Seattle won’t have the same bite without fans drowning out pre-snap calls from Dak Prescott.

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Dallas Cowboys can’t expect anything until June and there’s a good chance all mini-camps will be virtual rather than actual practices. Training camp still has a chance to resume on time but even that will be dramatically impacted by COVID-19 in an attempt to stay as safe as possible – under the circumstances.

Chances are NBA and MLB will resume in some capacity before the NFL – largely because they are trying to finish the previous season. The Dallas Cowboys and the rest of the NFL were financially fortunate enough to have the pandemic strike during the offseason, pushing the financial burden a little further down the road.

Nothing is set in stone and it likely won’t be until procedures are put into place across the board. But based on what is coming out from the NFL it doesn’t look like they’re going to force anything before they have to. It’s safe to say, don’t expect anything before training camp

• Published on 05/20/2020 at 16:01 PM
• Last updated at 05/20/2020 at 13:33 PM