Usually I’m a pretty optimistic guy, which is saying a lot given my status as a fan of the Buffalo Bills.

Just a week ago I was pretty darn confident sports would return and things would slowly return to some level of normalcy.

Lately, that rosy outlook has dimmed.

Even as the MLB plows ahead with its plans to open the season at the end of this month.

Even as the NBA still considers it feasible to restart a season in the middle of a state where the coronavirus is again running amok.

Even as high school teams get back into gyms and onto fields, disinfecting footballs and volleyballs and equipment minute by minute; coaches wearing masks like they once wore whistles.

I just don’t see how it’s going to work.

Don’t get me wrong, I hope it does work. I’m a sportswriter, after all — sports are kind of my jam. It’s been an incredibly difficult time as sportswriter in a world sans sports.

I haven’t covered a live sporting event since early March.

That’s why I am so dismayed by the trend I am seeing.

There’s only so much a league, a school, a team, a coach, a player can do to stay safe.

COVID-19 is unlike anything we have seen in our lifetime. It is virulent, easily transmitted and seemingly still everywhere.

Right now, people are going about the business of sports a bit like horses go about a race at Churchhill Downs.

With blinders on.

Eventually, though, there has to be a critical mass, there has to be a point where the brakes slammed on again if the current upward slope of cases continue, no?

The news in the last week has been sobering and illustrates just how strong the grip this pandemic still has on all of us.

The Minnesota Twins told two coaches in their 60s to sit this season out.

A third of the Clemson football team has tested positive for the coronavirus. Other student-athletes at other universities who have resumed on-campus workouts have tested positive at an alarming rate.

Every major professional sport has had outbreaks.

The big question for all level of sports is what happens when there is an outbreak?

What happens to the MLB season in August or September or, gasp, October, when the coronavirus almost inevitably tears through a team?

What happens if the NBA Finals begin and a team is decimated by positive tests.

How is a physical game like football going to survive the intense safety protocols?

What happens if a high school has an explosion of cases in the fall?

What happens to a sport when it is played in the vacuum of an empty stadium?

There are so many unknowns. So many things that could (and probably will) go wrong.

This isn’t over. Far from it.

I would love nothing more, though, than to be wrong about my pessimism. I would like nothing more than to see sports resume without incident.

We need sports. I need sports.

Fingers (and toes) crossed.

Mike Kilroy is a staff writer for the Butler Eagle.