Higher-risk NFL coaches not punting on season of COVID

Danny Smith will turn 67 in the middle of this pandemic-altered NFL season, an age that has put Pittsburgh's special teams coordinator at higher risk for harm from the coronavirus.

Taking a precautionary sabbatical this year, however, would not have suited Smith well.

“It never entered my mind. Man, I don’t do anything but coach football. I don’t have any hobbies,” Smith said this week. “I’ve been called a lot of names in this business, but a ‘house cat’ has never been one of them, and I’m not one to sit at home and do nothing.”

Courage and perseverance have forever been part of the ethos of the sport, occasionally to a bull-headed fault. Still, 67 players across the league exercised their collectively bargained right to opt out of the 2020 season for health reasons.

To date, no member of any team's coaching staff has announced an intent to sit out. Most coaches in the league are at least two decades older than the players they're directing, even with the recent hiring trend toward younger, offense-minded head coaches. The gap between the eldest of coaches and the youngest of players reaches the 50-year range.

For many of the game's most seasoned teachers, coaching football is all they've ever wanted to do.

“There’s no way I’d opt out,” said 64-year-old Vikings head coach Mike Zimmer, adding: “Us coaches that are in these high risk areas, we kind of understand how safe it really is in this building. Where we have to be careful is when we step outside the building. I’ve talked to the coaches about a lot of these things as well. I think we love to do what we do so much that this is important to us.”

Said Dallas defensive coordinator Mike Nolan, who is 61: “I never even thought about opting out myself. That was a player option, but I...

source https://www.chron.com/sports/article/Higher-risk-NFL-coaches-not-punting-on-season-of-15506183.php