NFL pressed on with free agency despite coronavirus, and not everyone was happy

All day Monday, NFL teams executed roster moves ahead of the league year set to officially start on time Wednesday. In the morning, teams applied franchise tags to prominent players. Starting at noon, the negotiating period for free agents, called by some the "legal tampering" period, kicked off and led to megabucks contract agreements, which cannot be officially signed until Wednesday. The blockbuster trade of superstar wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins momentarily became a top trending topic on Twitter, even breaking through coronavirus updates.

The burst of NFL news happened after league officials made appeals to delay the activity and while many others grumbled. Some league officials believed it would be bad optics for news of multimillion-dollar contracts to trickle out as the rest of the country struggled with fallout and financial distress from the coronavirus. While NFL teams handed out their big contracts, the Dow Jones industrial average plunged nearly 3,000 points. Team officials were frustrated by uncertainties regarding how they could meet and conduct physical examinations on free agents.

Some of those questions were answered Monday evening, when the NFL and NFLPA released a joint statement regarding next steps in the offseason. During free agency, NFL teams will be barred from bringing a player to their facilities or meeting players at other locations. The NFL and the union are also developing ways for players' medical histories to be shared among teams, and for players to undergo physical exams in their hometowns.

One executive with an NFC team, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters, said that teams did not know those measures were coming, but that they should have been expected.

"I think that's some of the common sense that had to be in place at the start of the league year, they put in place," the executive said. "You can't encourage travel of any kind. You just send a team plane - that's the last thing you want the optics of, people flying privately. The common sense approach is the same as the rest of the country. You can do anything remotely. You just can't travel."

In another update to the offseason schedule, organized team activities have been suspended indefinitely and will not begin as scheduled April 6 for teams with new head coaches and April 20 for other teams. The league and union will meet occasionally to determine a new start date.

Despite internal misgivings at the outset of free agency, the NFL seemed to receive few complaints from fans and outside observers, and many fans seemed to use the business-of-football updates as a welcome distraction as they stayed home from work or consumed coronavirus news.

The league also announced Monday that it would make changes to its plans for this year's draft, keeping it on schedule for April 23-25 but not having it be a public spectacle as in past years, citing coronavirus concerns.

Officials from the league and owners' side and the NFL Players Association, all of whom requested anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, offered conflicting accounts of how the NFL revved into action during a pandemic.

The NFL could not unilaterally delay the beginning of the new league year Wednesday, which coincides with the opening of the free agent market. That could be done only through an agreement between the league and the NFLPA. The sides were in contact Sunday, after the NFLPA announced that players had narrowly ratified a new collective bargaining agreement with the league and team owners running through the 2030 season.

People familiar with the NFL's thinking described a disagreement between league officials and the union in which DeMaurice Smith, the NFLPA's executive director, declined overtures to halt business as usual.

According to one person familiar with the planning of the league and owners, the owners' labor bargaining committee favored a postponement. According to that person, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell spoke Sunday morning with Smith, and Smith would not agree to a postponement. At least one owner had a similar conversation later Sunday with Smith, that person said.

One person familiar with the union's thinking said the Sunday phone call between the league and the union included ample discussion, no conflict and ultimately an agreement that the league year should begin Monday for lack of a better alternative.

Goodell, Smith, New York Giants co-owner John Mara and Cleveland Browns center JC Tretter, the NFLPA's newly elected president, took part in the call, the person familiar with the union's thinking said. Mara is the chairman of the owners' labor negotiating committee.

"They all came to an agreement there would be no purpose to delaying the league year because it's just about signings," the person familiar with the union's thinking said. "There's no magic reason to push the year back. It's just the start of business and teams can start signing players. . . . A core reason for why not to push it back was, two weeks from now, two months from now, what's going to change? Are people going to magically be able to travel? The situation in our country is going to get worse before it gets better, from what experts say."

The account from the league's side was consistent with a report by ESPN that the NFLPA would not consent to a postponement because players are not traveling for free agency and the business transactions can be done by phone. The union also feared that the coronavirus-related conditions could worsen from here, according to the ESPN report.

Smith told ESPN on Monday morning that the league did not propose a delay to free agency during their conversations.

The league informed teams late Sunday that free agency would proceed as scheduled. Teams had until 11:59 a.m. Monday to use franchise or transition tags to limit players' free agent mobility. Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott was among 14 players franchise-tagged by the deadline. The Arizona Cardinals were the only team to use a transition tag, applying it to running back Kenyan Drake.

Free agents could negotiate with all teams beginning at noon Monday. The deals began to be lined up Monday afternoon, though they cannot be official until the formal opening of the free agent market Wednesday at 4 p.m. Eastern time.

Hopkins' trade from the Houston Texans to the Arizona Cardinals, which netted Houston a second-round draft pick and fading-star running back David Johnson (along with a swap of fourth-rounders), headlined the day's action, which included tight end Austin Hooper agreeing to a deal with the Browns, defensive lineman Arik Armstead deciding to stay with the San Francisco 49ers for a deal worth up to $85 million (while San Francisco shipped another defensive lineman, DeForest Buckner, to the Indianapolis Colts in exchange for a first-round pick) and quarterback Kirk Cousins agreeing to a two-year extension with the Minnesota Vikings.

Front office executives with several teams expressed dismay with the situation as the day began. Some were upset that teams were forced to conduct their offseason business at a time when many of them have closed their facilities and sent employees home. Others fretted about the optics.

"It's a bad look," an executive with one team said.

But not everyone took such a dim view. Former longtime Cowboys executive Gil Brandt wrote Monday on Twitter: "I might be in the minority but I think the NFL made the correct (and very difficult) decision to conduct business as usual [regarding] free agency. Whether this was the intent or not, it is giving people a small break from worries in stressful times. There's something healing in that."

The NFC team executive saw wisdom in both arguments. Waiting to start the league year would have invited uncertainty about the state of affairs regarding the coronavirus and further logistical challenges. Would the schedule release be pushed back, too? What about the draft? But the hardships the nation faces make announcing contracts seem out of touch. In the end, the country seemed to embrace the drip-drip-drip of NFL news. But the league will face more hard decisions, because hard decisions are now a way of life for every institution.

"The NFL is usually a microcosm of America," the NFC team executive said. "It's a strange time in America, and it's a strange time in the NFL."