Falcons' Arthur Blank Believes NFL Will Play 16-Game Season Despite COVID-19

Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank was optimistic that the NFL will be "fine" and able to carry out a 16-game 2020 regular-season despite the coronavirus pandemic while speaking with NBC Sports' Peter King for his weekly Football Morning in America column:

"If I had to speculate now, and I use the word speculate because that's really all it is, I would say yes. Only because it's so far away from where we are today. I could easily see camps being shorter, players being tested on a daily basis, things of that nature. No fan attendance. Things like that. We may have fewer preseason games, which probably wouldn't be the end of the world. But I think by September, my hope is by the time the regular season starts, that we'll be able to bring people together in some form or fashion in a safe manner and play."

Blank added that he feels football is needed now because of the overwhelming COVID-19 news cycle.

Commissioner Roger Goodell told teams Thursday that this year's draft will go on as scheduled from April 23 to 25:

Sam Farmer of the Los Angeles Times reported March 21 that the draft would no longer be held in Las Vegas. The league had previously announced that there wouldn't be any surrounding events open to the public.

Major League Baseball and Major League Soccer, as well as the NBA and NHL, suspended their 2019-20 seasons earlier this month. The NFL's offseason has been affected, too:

CNN relayed more than 139,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases in the United States with at least 2,425 resulting deaths as of Sunday evening.