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With rookie report day on Monday, the Kansas City Chiefs began the most unique training camp in NFL history. The Chiefs and Houston Texans start a few days earlier than everyone else as they open up the NFL season.
Talks between the NFL and NFL Players Association are still ongoing, but we know from national reports that the league did offer no preseason games and daily COVID testing Monday evening. Initial testing will now take place over four days rather than back-to-back.
What’s left on the table are discussions involving league finances, as described by Ian Rapoport Tuesday morning on NFL Network’s “Good Morning Football.”
From @GMFB: All eyes are now on the economics, as the NFL and NFLPA move closer to a deal... pic.twitter.com/9IlNEu6vLD
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) July 21, 2020
Rapoport said the league is figuring out how to handle the revenue shortfall for the 2021 salary cap, which Chiefs general manager Brett Veach confirmed is still unknown — even to teams — as of Monday. The owners want to make up the money now whereas the players want to spread it out over 10 seasons. The other question mark involved guaranteed money — if the season cannot be completed, for example, how much of the players guaranteed salary do players make?
Chiefs owner Clark Hunt was named the league’s finance committee chairman in February 2019, so it is safe to assume he is heavily involved in these talks.
The positive here is negotiations seem to be in a much better place than they were on Sunday night, when Patrick Mahomes and Tyrann Mathieu were among those tweeting their concerns about returning to play. The two sides appear to be trending to that of an agreement sometime Tuesday or Wednesday.