Two more players tested positive as Cleveland prepares to play Pittsburg in Week 17
Lest you thought that today, the final one of 2020, would give you any feeling of moving forward into a different and more hopeful year, the news must remind you that time is a construct and we’re still mired here in the middle of a pandemic. Even the sports news.
The Cleveland Browns, who seemed destined to break a 17-season streak without making the playoffs, are indeed very much back in danger of missing the playoffs. Sure, they’re preparing to play a must-win game against the Steelers, and the Steelers have opted to start Mason Rudolph at QB. That should be plenty of reason for optimism, even if you’ve lived the last two decades having optimism drained out of you by the Cleveland Browns.
Alas, Cleveland has yet to shake that pesky coronavirus, which last week forced all the decent receivers and two offensive linemen to miss a game against the lowly Jets — turning that game into an unexpected loss.
By now we’ve gotten somewhat accustomed to the rhythm of all of this, right? If two players tested positive, but one was already in isolation, that means the NFL is currently checking its data on the player who has been around, to see which other people he’s been around. And if he’s deemed to have been in close contact with other players, they’ll have to sit out until it can be determined whether they’ve been infected.
Imagine me telling you all of this on the last day of last year: “Yes, the NFL will data chip players and use video to monitor their day-to-day activity to see who they get close to in order to attempt to measure whether they could have spread a virus that has killed nearly 350,000 Americans.”
You might’ve slapped me. But we’ve made it all the way through to the point where we’re mostly just like: Sure, but what about the game?
Well, the Browns did practice on Wednesday, and got starting left tackle Jedrick Willis back. Turns out he missed the game against the Jets due to illness; he’d been on the COVID close-contact list, but came off of it, but felt sick, presumably with something else, and couldn’t play. The guy who replaced him, Kendall Lamm, missed practice Wednesday due to illness. The non-coronavirus kind, we’re guessing.
The Browns hope to practice again today, but clearly their routine for the week has been significantly altered. They’ll basically be playing the Steelers’ JV squad, though:
So … who knows? If the Browns are deemed to have properly followed social distancing rules and can get most of their players back, they should be fine. They’re favored by more than a touchdown, as the Steelers have little to play for; they’ve already won the division but can’t get the No. 1 seed in the conference. And, due to the NFL’s playoff expansion to 7 teams per conference, they won’t get a bye on Wild Card weekend. So they’ve created one for their top players, and the Browns should benefit.
Cleveland is in the playoffs if it wins, or if the Indianapolis Colts lose to the Jaguars (seems unlikely). It could also get in if the Titans somehow lose to the Texans and the Ravens (at Cincinnati), Colts and Dolphins (at Buffalo) all win.
No fanbase deserves to see its team make the playoffs more than Cleveland’s. The Browns won 10 games in 2007 and were kept out of the postseason. They stunk for the next decade. They won a total of four games in the 2015 and ’16 seasons, then went 0-16 in 2017. We can debate whether Baker Mayfield is going to be the long-term franchise QB they need, but this was supposed to be it: first-year coach Kevin Stefanski created an offense that worked, and would return a once-proud franchise (or at least he reincarnation of it) to meaningful January football.
It still might. Or maybe the woes of 2020 will simply carry over, relentlessly.
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