Wednesday open thread: If you were an NFL player, would you opt out?

When the NFL and NFLPA announced an agreement on protocols for the 2020 season late last week, it offered players the option to opt out of the 2020 season. This spurred numerous reactions, especially as players actually began to opt out in the past couple of days. It’s obviously a complicated issue and no two players are in the same situation, so there could be any number of reasons why they would choose to do so (or not).

You can track all the players who have opted out of the 2020 season here.

Question of the day: If you were an NFL player, would you opt out of the 2020 season?

My answer: I would lean towards opting out, but it wouldn’t be a firm decision.

There’s a reason they say the NFL stands for Not For Long. If I were a roster bubble player and felt that if I didn’t play I would be on my way out of the league, I think I would have to play. However, in almost any other circumstance I would lean towards opting out. There’s simply too much risk in the game of football—unless you’re a punter, that’s probably the safest position there is right now. Maybe I ought to rethink it...