What is the damage for the Titans?
Right now the Tennessee Titans might just be the most hated team in the NFL.
Now, it isn’t like the team was going out and trying to get other teams sick or lying about their symptoms before a game, but they broke the rules and the NFL is going to punish them for it.
Since we know that, the question moves from “will they be punished?” to “how bad is it going to be?” and no one really knows the answer. No matter what precedent anyone believes the league has set in the past, there is no way you can look back and say, “Hmm. Which situation in the last 100 years is most like the Tennessee Titans practicing off-site after being told not to after being caught circumventing or outright breaking protocols put in place to prevent a widespread virus taking over the league?”
The way I see it, there are really only three things the NFL can do to the Titans. Obviously they could combine some of these punishments, but it isn’t going to be some new way to punish a team that has never been seen before like making a team play with 10 guys on each side of the ball for a game.
So what are those categories? Well, let’s start with the one that feels the most appropriate.