The New England Patriots didn’t play on Sunday (or Monday) when their game against the Denver Broncos was set to take place. After defensive tackle Byron Cowart tested positive for COVID-19 on Saturday night, the NFL moved the game from Week 5 to Week 6 to give the Patriots more time to stop the spread of the coronavirus within their locker room.
They currently have four players on the reserve/COVID-19 list.
But NBC Sports suggested that the Patriots might have been defiant with the NFL, which wanted the team to play on Monday night despite Cowart’s positive test. So during an interview with WEEI on Monday, the sports radio hosts asked Bill Belichick about whether it was possible the Patriots leveraged the NFL to move the game.
“We don’t really have anything to do with the scheduling. There are a lot of things involved,” Belichick said on WEEI Monday.
On Saturday, Patriots cornerback Jason McCourty called out the NFL and the NFLPA by saying “they don’t care.” Belichick was asked if his players were losing trust with how the NFL is handling COVID-19.
“I can’t really speak to how everyone else is feeling. I think you should ask someone else about that,” Belichick said. “I feel like everyone’s doing their best trying to make sure the season will happen and work around a lot of, I would say, difficult problems. We’ll continue to do that.”
Has he lost trust in the protocols?
“I just said I think everyone’s doing the best they can to handle it. I think that there are a lot of smart people involved here, and there are a lot of people trying to do the right thing handling the football side of it, handling the medical side of it, trying to balance it all together. Everyone wants to play. I think we’re trying to make that work safely.”
To add to the drama — which Belichick is making a clear effort to extinguish — the Patriots asked the league for additional locker room space after quarterback Cam Newton, the team’s first COVID-positive player, contracted the virus. New England had roughly 20 players who had been in close contact with the quarterback, per Pro Football Talk. So the Patriots asked for more space. That request was denied, per PFT. How did he feel about the Patriots getting stuck in a Chiefs’ locker room?
“The stadium facilities and all that — that’s handled through the league and the home team,” Belichick said, before adding. “Well, it’s a small locker room. There’s no doubt about that.”
[vertical-gallery id=96175]