Dolphins' Plan to Let Fans Into a Socially-Distanced NFL Season Will Literally Never Work

If the NFL intends to have a season (and it certainly seems that way!), odds are the games will have to open without fans in attendance.

We don't make the rules. Without a widespread vaccine for the coronavirus OR a monstrously low recurring case count (under, say, five per day, which isn't even enough to convince South Korea to let fans into their KBO games), it's unlikely such things would be approved.

That being said, however, the Miami Dolphins have just become the first NFL team to release a plan for socially-distanced attendance at games. While thrilling, it's...well, it's probably not worth it getting too hopeful, at this point.

The Dolphins' plan sound great, in theory, but nearly impossible in practice. Per team CEO and president Tom Garfinkel, Miami would assign different arrival times to different gates in an effort to spread out security screenings, and would have fans depart the stadium row-by-row, in similar fashion to a megachurch.

If epidemiologists deem this strategy safe, then fantastic! But this is so idealized. In what NFL world could you foresee drunken, rabid fans waiting patiently after a last-second loss to exit in an orderly fashion? In what universe are tailgaters obeying their ticket entry times down to the second in the name of safety?

NFL fans don't want to attend games again if they're forced to act like well-behaved schoolchildren. Once you let them in the doors, they WILL be rowdy. It's what they're meant to do. If the league truly does intend to proceed as normal for this fall, they'd better prove to me and many others that a breach in safety protocol would not result in catastrophe.

Until then, this is just another beautiful fantasy.