Bruce Kluckhohn/Associated Press
Football is a game tightly controlled by a clock. Yet through the spring and summer, the N.F.L. had something most coaches and players covet: time.
The league was in its fallow period when the coronavirus pandemic in March forced other sports leagues to shut down in midstream. The N.F.L. made its April draft and summer workouts remote, and had months to cherry-pick ideas from around the sports world and create testing protocols, reconfigure team facilities and make other changes.
But with the season underway, the league is now in a two-minute drill thanks to two decisions the owners and players made months ago: They chose to start the season on time as the virus raged around the country, and they did not follow the N.