UPDATE 3:07 pm: As we suspected, this is not happening.
Here is the tweet from Michael Lee of the Washington Post to confirm what teams have been told:
Nothing to see here, move along.
1:03 pm: Don’t bet on this happening, but it apparently is being discussed.
There are a number of teams — Boston and Miami among them — who have a lot of roster filling in to do before the season starts, which makes training camp hard. Especially since camps and free agency were both set to kick off Dec. 9.
So the league is considering pushing back the start of training camps through the weekend until Monday, reports Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo.The league office was polling team executives over the past 48 hours about the possibility, sources said. Despite the discussions, no final decision has been made....
“Teams with just a handful of guys under contract have been complaining that it’s going to be too difficult to start on Friday,” one league executive said.
Don’t expect this to happen just because of the timing. Training camps were set to open Dec. 9, the first preseason games are Dec. 16 and games start Dec. 25. Push back the start and camps now would not open until Dec. 12, four days before the first preseason games.
It’s not going to be ideal for some teams, but if the league wants games on Christmas they can’t really roll things back at this point. Play is going to be sloppy enough at the start of this season without less practice time.