4 NFL storylines to follow this season including COVID, Tom Brady

Dealing with COVID-19

Raiders coach Jon Gruden has deemed COVID-19 the biggest opponent on this year’s schedule.

“We want to crush this virus; we want to beat this virus into the ground,” Gruden said at the start of training camp.

It’s an oft-repeated message. It might as well be plastered in every locker room across the league.

Nothing moves forward in the NFL this year without first managing a pandemic that has wreaked havoc across the globe and altered everything, the NFL included.

Priority No. 1 this season is protecting players, coaches and everyone else involved with getting this season off the ground. That has been reflected in the manner in which NFL teams have prepared themselves during training camp, in the protection and testing policies that are in place at their facilities, in the message players and staffers return home with every night and in how they will travel to away games.

Across the league, there will be greatly reduced fan participation. In some stadiums — Allegiant is one — no fans will be allowed to attend games.

Initial testing numbers — of which positive results have fallen far below the national average — have been encouraging. But for the season to unfold as hoped, that needs to be maintained.

There are no guarantees, and certainly the NFL has made major roster-management adjustments to be flexible should any breakouts occur, but so far so good.

Nevertheless, COVID-19 is a shadow that will follow the NFL all season.

Tom Brady and Tampa Bay

Arguably the greatest quarterback ever will not finish his career where it started.

But no matter how weird it is that Tom Brady is with the Buccaneers rather than the New England Patriots, it’s not all that unusual that he didn’t go wire to wire with his original team.

Just ask Peyton Manning, Brett Favre, Joe Montana and Joe Namath.

They come and they go, even the greatest to ever play the game.

So now Brady heads to Tampa Bay, where at 43 years old the six-time Super Bowl champion will try to continue his magic while playing with an impressive collection of offensive talent.

Wide receivers Mike Evans and Chris Godwin, tight ends Cameron Brate and O.J. Howard and running back Ronald Jones are as talented as any of Brady’s former teammates. Throw in his old New England partner Rob Gronkowski, who returned from his one-year retirement to join Brady in Florida, and all of a sudden the Buccaneers have something special in the making.

Here is the thing: Jameis Winston, the former Tampa Bay quarterback, had spectacular moments with the Bucs but just as many faceplants in which he sabotaged things with turnovers. When Winston was right, he and the Bucs were a sight to behold offensively.

Brady walks into that scene merely needing to do what he has always done: play smart, efficient football and stay away from dumb mistakes.

Even at his advanced age, that is more than possible. If so, yeah, the Buccaneers are a team to watch.

The Patriots

Admit it, a small part of you wonders if Patriots coach Bill Belichick is actually fired up about moving on from Tom Brady and re-inventing the Patriots.

Not to say that Belichick holds a grudge, and the football historian in him likely would have preferred a fairytale ending in which Brady ended what he started in New England.

But Brady seemed to have other ideas.

So now Belichick, the greatest coach of them all, gets to redo the whole thing. You have to believe part of him relishes that opportunity. It’s not farfetched to think that he’d like to remind the whole football world that he’s still pretty darned good at what he does, even without No. 12 at quarterback.

As Brady exits, Cam Newton enters. Motivated by the doubters, presumably healthy after a couple of injury-plagued seasons, you can just feel the fuel running through both Newton’s and Belichick’s engines.

Each is motivated for different reasons, and each is in position to drive home a loud, decisive point.

Either that or Belichick has an ace up his sleeve in which he tanks the 2020 season and puts himself in position to secure Clemson star quarterback Trevor Lawrence in next year’s draft.

Either way, it’ll be hard not to keep our eyes on what is going on in New England.

The Todd Gurley watch

Not sure anyone will ever figure out exactly what happened to Todd Gurley in Los Angeles between December 2018 and the end of last season.

One minute he was heading toward another NFL Offensive Player of the Year award, the next he was a shell of himself after suffering a mysterious knee injury for which details have been as clouded as Area 51.

One minute the Rams, Sean McVay and Gurley are insisting the knee is fine and he’ll be used accordingly. The next he was going long stretches of games in 2019 in which he was more of a decoy than a weapon.

The next thing you know, less than two years after signing a substantial contract extension, Gurley and the Rams parted ways. It was a confusing and sudden fall from grace, as one of the best young players in the game just two seasons ago was out of a job.

That he lands in Atlanta seems appropriate given the proximity to his great college days at nearby Georgia. But it won’t be nostalgia that helps Gurley get back on his feet. It will be a healthy knee and the willingness of Falcons coaches to use him accordingly.

That is a big if. You don’t get the sense the Rams were eager to part ways with such a dynamic piece of their offense had he been completely healthy.

Now more than a year removed from whatever actually happened in 2018 — and one season in which he played a limited role— maybe Gurley has a chance to recapture his former self.

Contact Vincent Bonsignore at vbonsignore@reviewjournal.com. Follow @VinnyBonsignore onTwitter.