In an effort to reduce the risk of spreading the coronavirus, the NFL is cutting down on the number of staffers that teams can take on road trips.
Ben Fischer of Sports Business Journal reports that teams will not be allowed to bring more than 70 staff members, which includes coaches, the medical staff and everyone else who has contact with the team. Previously NFL teams were allowed to bring as many as 110 staffers.
Anyone who doesn’t fly with the team isn’t allowed to have access to the official traveling party.
The NFL’s thinking is that fewer people traveling with the team will mean less of a possibility of a COVID-19 outbreak. That won’t sit well with some teams that are accustomed to having much larger numbers of staffers on road trips, but the league’s top priority is to play a full season, and preventing an outbreak is the way to make that happen.