While Tom Brady is diving head-first into his new season with his new team despite all the COVID-19 concerns, at least one key member of his offensive unit is having second thoughts about playing in 2020. Donovan Smith, the Buccaneers' left tackle -- who is slated to make $14.5 million this coming season -- took to Instagram Friday to express his reluctance about playing. View this post on Instagram @nfl @nflpa To whom it may concern: With the start of the 2020 NFL season fast approaching, many thoughts and questions roam my mind as I’m sure it does for many of my fellow “coworkers” across the league. The unfortunate events of the COVID-19 pandemic have put a halt to a lot of things. Football is not one. To continue discussing the many UNKNOWNS do not give me the comfort. Risking my health as well as my family’s health does not seem like a risk worth taking. With my first child due in 3 weeks, I can’t help but think about how will I be able to go to work and take proper precautions around 80+ people everyday to then go home to be with my newborn daughter. How can a sport that requires physical contact on every snap and transferral of all types of bodily fluid EVERY SINGLE PLAY practice safe social distancing? How can I make sure that I don’t bring COVID-19 back to my household? Yes, we can get tested everyday, but if it takes 24 hours to get my results, how can I know each day that I am not spreading this virus or contracting it? The reoccurring issue here is how? There are too many “hows” that have yet to be answered to ease player concerns and ensure the safety of not only myself, but also my family. I just can’t imagine how the game will be the same during these unprecedented times. Now to hear that 35% of my paycheck may be withheld while we are out sacrificing our health and wellness for the joy and entertainment of everyone else who will be safe at home in front of their TVs? Something isn’t right here. That should at LEAST warrant a pay raise due to the risk, not a cut. I am not a lab rat or guinea pig to test theories on. I am a man, a son, brother, soon to be father, and I deserve to be safe at work. A post shared by Donovan Smith (@dsmith_76) on Jul 10, 2020 at 6:37am PDTSmith joins a growing list of NFL players who are expressing concerns over conducting a 2020 season in the middle of the current pandemic. The NFL has already cut the preseason schedule to two games, with the NFLPA lobbying to eliminate all of the exhibition games. There have also been a myriad of other regulations and protocols surfaced, some of which have been accepted with others met by skepticism. This is a perfect example of NFL thinking in a nutshell. Players can go engage in a full contact game and do it safely. However, it is deemed unsafe for them to exchange jerseys after said game. 😂🤣😂 https://t.co/fWefsUSVDc— Richard Sherman (@RSherman_25) July 9, 2020As for the Bucs' depth chart, if Smith doesn't play the second-string left tackle right now is identified as Brad Seaton, with the 13th overall pick in this year's NFL Draft Tristan Wirfs slotted in to play right tackle. LISTEN NOW on the RADIO.COM AppFollow RADIO.COM SportsTwitter | Facebook I Instagram

They clearly aren't fooling around in Toronto when it comes to keeping the Blue Jays sequestered. Here is what’s going to keep #BlueJays players in their stadium/hotel bubble this summer:Per multiple sources, players have been told penalty if seen outside ballpark is $750,000 fine and potential jail time.— Scott Mitchell (@ScottyMitchTSN) July 10, 2020The Jays have gotten permission from the Canadian government to hold their training camp at Rogers Centre with the understanding that the players stay at the adjoining hotel when not working out. But according to former Red Sox Travis Shaw, who now plays for the Blue Jays, the agreement to be confined to just the field and hotel wasn't supposed to extend into the regular season, which is slated to kick off July 24. We were told two weeks... not all summer... all summer is a bit much https://t.co/6S7euLbHWA— Travis Shaw (@travis_shaw21) July 10, 2020The Blue Jays, who are slated to play two exhibition games in Boston on July 21 and 22, currently have 46 players in their camp with 12 others remaining in Dunedin, Fla. after one tested positive for COVID-19. The players in Florida must come through with two negative tests before joining their teammates in Canada. LISTEN NOW on the RADIO.COM AppFollow RADIO.COM SportsTwitter | Facebook I Instagram

Amid continued coronavirus uncertainty, the Big Ten dropped a bombshell Thursday, announcing the league will only schedule games against conference opponents this fall. In doing so, the Big Ten becomes the first of the Power Five leagues to adopt a conference-only model for fall sports. The ACC had previously announced a delay to Olympic sports (soccer, volleyball, cross-country and field hockey) while the Ivy League plans to curtail its athletic programs until at least January 1. The Big Ten is expected to announce today that it will go with a conference-only football schedule for this fall, a person with direct knowledge situation tells @TheAthleticCFB.— Nicole Auerbach 😷 (@NicoleAuerbach) July 9, 2020Choosing to eschew its non-conference slate is an unprecedented measure by the Big Ten, but it’s probably what is needed right now. We’ve seen professional leagues take drastic steps to reduce travel, hoping to limit players’ exposure to the virus (the NBA and NHL are both resuming in restrictive “bubble” environments), and it seems colleges are beginning to follow suit. Thursday’s landmark announcement comes as a major blow to college football—the NCAA’s biggest moneymaker by far—effectively wiping out marquee games featuring Ohio State and Oregon, Wisconsin versus Notre Dame and Penn State against Virginia Tech, among other highly-anticipated matchups. The first major domino among Power 5 conferences...Lost non-con games would include:Ohio State at OregonWisconsin vs. Notre DamePenn State at Va TechMichigan at WashingtonIowa vs. Iowa StateMichigan State at BYUCincy at Nebraska. https://t.co/Ehm7wuW9WC— Jesse Simonton (@JesseReSimonton) July 9, 2020With the college sports season fast approaching, the NCAA finds itself in a race against the clock. Will football and other sports delay their seasons or will other conferences follow the Big Ten’s lead in adopting abbreviated, conference-only schedules in a last-ditch effort to keep the fall sports season alive? With COVID-19 not showing any signs of slowing down (in fact, its prevalence has increased in many areas of the country), the upcoming fall sports season—and the reopening of colleges in general—remains very much in flux. LISTEN NOW on the RADIO.COM AppFollow RADIO.COM SportsTwitter | Facebook I Instagram

There had been some thought that the NFL would be in better shape than other leagues because it had more time to wait out the coronavirus pandemic before playing games. However, with the virus not only still present, but once again spiking in the United States, the reality that the NFL season will in fact be impacted is beginning to set in. Half of all preseason games have already been canceled and teams are bracing for the likelihood of having no fans or a reduced number of fans at games, with the Ravens and Chiefs already announcing plans for reduced capacity. As we’ve seen in other sports, most notably baseball, with this new reality comes an economic showdown between owners and players about how to handle the loss of revenue. And as we saw with baseball, that showdown is already spilling into public view. On Tuesday, NFL Media’s Tom Pelissero reported that the NFL Players Association informed its board of representatives that the league was proposing that 35% of player salaries be held in escrow to help manage costs during the 2020 season. According to Pelissero, the response from NFLPA executive Don Davis to the league was, “Basically, we told them to kick rocks.” Davis, who won two Super Bowls with the Patriots in 2003 and 2004, joined Ordway, Merloni and Fauria on Wednesday (listen to the full interview here) to expand on the negotiations with the league and that first offer that he views as “a bit outrageous.” “When they’re asked to take a pay cut, typically that is the reaction,” Davis told OMF. “Nobody should really be surprised about that. Any time you’re in a contract dispute or you’re asked to take less money, I think that’s your first reaction, all of us. “…I think any time you’re in a labor and management disagreement, contract, negotiation, I think you have two sides that tend to be on opposite sides,” Davis continued. “They tend to be divergent. However, I think both sides understand the dynamics that are in play, and neither side could have predicted or prepared for what we are currently experiencing with this novel and emerging virus called COVID-19. I think it’s in both of our interests to continue to discuss it and figure out ways to mitigate losses to the game. But I think that first and opening ask was a bit outrageous.” Sr. Director of Player Affairs for @NFLPA (and former #Patriots LB) Don Davis joined @LouMerloni & @christianfauria and said the initial escrow offer from the #NFL was, "a bit outrageous." Full interview: https://t.co/r3oLn3eIHs Watch OMF M-F 2-6pm ➡️ https://t.co/8GsskI27S4 pic.twitter.com/Lle4A1jhxl — OMF (@OMFonWEEI) July 8, 2020 “When you go at a 10,000-square-foot level,” Davis said, “and you just look at what reason would say, then what you’re saying is, ‘Four preseason games are not in the best health and safety of players based on COVID, but guess what? Good news, two are totally fine.’ That’s a tough position to take, right? The position of the PA isn’t, ‘Have no preseason games.’ That’s not the narrative at all. I know that’s out there. The position is, ‘Can you tell us how playing four is problematic, but playing two is OK?’” Davis said players are also concerned about the ramp-up schedule, as he says the NFL has decided to discard a schedule that a joint committee had come up with that laid out the time period it would take to safely get ready for the season with all the new precautions and protocols in place. “We have a joint committee, several joint committees, that have provided recommendations as to what constitutes risk mitigation and what’s the best and safest way for players to play,” Davis said. “One of those committees is our return to work committee. That committee, jointly hired folks from both sides, came up with a schedule that we called an acclimation period schedule. “What their goal was if everybody, in light of COVID, and we have to assume the lowest common denominator of a guy who’s locked down in a state and hasn’t been able to do anything beyond push-ups and sit-ups and running outside, what would it take to safely protect that player and get him ready for one game? They came up with a six-week, almost six-and-a-half-week ramp-up period that has three basic kind of areas. “There’s testing, there’s strength and conditioning that happens for a time with all these measures and all these protocols, then you go into an OTA kind of period, and then you get to contact integration where you finally get to football. That six weeks, that joint committee put that in place as a recommendation. The NFL has decided that wasn’t good enough because you can’t do that and fit it in without canceling the preseason. “So because preseason is so important, we’re going to cancel that recommendation from a committee that you just signed. They gave their recommendation, but we’re going to alter it and now we’re going to do those same periods but in two days here and three days there. That’s one way you could really say, ‘You know what, we believe that in the best interest of the players, based on the recommendation of this committee that is full of experts, we’re going to abide by that schedule.’ That would be a big step.” LISTEN NOW on the RADIO.COM AppFollow RADIO.COM SportsTwitter | Facebook I Instagram