Football’s Doomsday Clock, Two Minutes to Midnight

The 2020 football season rapidly approaches, and with Michigan State's entire football team entering quarantine over the weekend, a bevy of NFL players choosing to opt-out of the 2020 football season and three of the Power 5 conferences still unsure of the logistics of the season, football's "Doomsday Clock" could not be closer to midnight than it is right now.

I, for one, want nothing more than a full 12-game college football regular season and 16-game NFL season. I am that football nerd who watches all four of my Chicago Bears preseason games just to do my own amateur evaluations of the back end of the roster. Nothing beats a marathon of football beginning with Friday night lights and not ending until Sunday Night Football is over.

All four weeks of the NFL's preseason are now cancelled, after shrewd negotiations from the NFLPA. The Big 10 and Pac-12 have reverted to only playing conference games. Ohio State recently announced it would not hold tailgating and limit fans to only 20% capacity inside The Horseshoe. Locally, Greene and Sumter Counties have cancelled the first nine weeks of the high school football season, essentially wiping it out all together. Birmingham City Schools have opted to not have football at the middle school level.

The proverbial Doomsday Clock for this football season is now sitting at two minutes until midnight. The season is not gone, but tensions are as high as they've ever been.

The NFL players have until August 3 to decide whether they will opt out of the upcoming season or not, currently there have been three former Crimson Tide Players make this choice, Dont'a Hightower, Andre Smith and Chance Warmack.

The Big 12, ACC and SEC presidents and athletic directors are meeting this week as individual conferences to seemingly decide how each league will approach the 2020 schedule.

While the Doomsday Clock does sit at two minutes until midnight, a few positive decisions from the Power 5 commissioners and the NFL following proper health and safety protocols could roll back the clock and give me my Tuesday night MACtion fix I crave so desperately.