Roger Goodell struck an optimistic chord about the NFL's outlook for a 2020 season in the wake of the ongoing pandemic, this in an Instagram interview with Ankur Jain, founder and CEO of the Miami-based facial recognition company Kairos.
That mattered plenty, since it marked Goodell's first video appearance of any kind since the coronavirus outbreak.
“The NFL is planning to play,” Goodell said in the interview. “That’s our hope, and that’s our planning to date. We can help our country heal. We can help bring our communities together. We can provide hope. We can provide a distraction from the everyday issues and show people that there's a future out there and that we’re all going to be part of that.”
He stressed that safety will come first.
“We have to put the general public safety but also the safety of all those workers,” he said, referring to those employed at NFL stadiums and other facilities. “The hope here is that the steps our leaders are taking are going to help end this pandemic as soon as possible.”
Toward that end, he added, “We’re gonna get through this. We’re gonna get through this together as a country and as a world. This is something we’re going to overcome. People should keep that hope, because we’re going to get back to doing the things that we were doing and hopefully creating a great future for so many people, and I hope everyone stays involved and does what’s best in our communities in the short term but, more important, keeps focusing on the future. Because it’s going to be a bright future for us.”
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