Laurent Duvernay-Tardif is the single best NFL player to tell the story of the weird 2020 season.
Laurent Duvernay-Tardif hasn’t played a single down in the National Football League this season. With seven games remaining for the Kansas City Chiefs, he’s also not expected to return. Still, he’s the single player who best represents this weird and memorable NFL season.
Duvernay-Tardif is/was the Chiefs starting right guard, a veteran who was in prime position to return this season in their attempts to run it back. Yet LDT is also a trained medical doctor, a player who has worked very hard in his downtime to not only complete medical school and his residency but to do what it takes to be able to practice medicine despite being gone to another country to play a professional sport for half the year.
As COVID-19 made the rounds this winter and became a global pandemic, Duvernay-Tardif made it clear that he felt he was needed on the front lines back in his native Montreal instead of playing for the Chiefs in 2020. The NFL gave players such as LDT a way out for a calendar year, allowing them to “opt out” only to return in 2021 with a delayed contract (that players could take advances on). Duvernay-Tardif was the first player to officially opt out in the league, and the Chiefs would go on to lose two more players in rookie OT Lucas Niang and running back Damien Williams.
While the NFL has done an impressive job of managing the spread of the disease thus far, the story of the season is (and will always be) the coronavirus. The league’s office has been forced to juggle facility shutdowns, stretch roster limits, and reschedule games. It’s impossible to tell just how many more issues will occur as COVID-19 spreads even more during the winter months and holiday gatherings.
The Pro Football Hall of Fame recently posted some of Duvernay-Tardif’s medical apparel in a display that tells the story best for this 2020 season.
Newest artifacts to arrive at The Hall: medical scrubs & lab coat of @LaurentDTardif.
— Pro Football Hall of Fame (@ProFootballHOF) November 14, 2020
The starting OG for the @Chiefs in #SuperBowl LIV, he stepped away from his football career this season to utilize his doctorate in medicine to help fight the COVID pandemic.#ChiefsKingdom pic.twitter.com/1wOIxiXBU1
It’s unknown whether or not this is a permanent display to help history tell the story or whether it’s a temporary artifact on display for now. Either way, it’s essential to tell the story of the way the league weathered a global pandemic and the choice of a player with bigger things on his mind than playing football.