“They waited for me,” Payton said. “They waited for me on the plane.” That concluded a wacky week for Payton, 27, as he was in and out of the league’s protocols where more than 100 players landed last month alone during this worldwide surge of COVID-19 cases. “It’s just out of control to be honest,” Payton said. “It’s crazy. It’s nothing I don’t think we can really do to be honest. You see people with the booster still getting it. You see people who got the regular vaccine get it. It’s almost inevitable. You’ve just got to deal with it.”