A New Orleans Saints player has tested positive for COVID-19 after arriving in Detroit for their Week 4 game with the Lions, putting this week’s game in jeopardy.
Multiple sources are reporting that New Orleans Saints player — and former Detroit Lion — fullback Michael Burton has tested positive for COVID-19 after arriving in Detroit for their Week 4 game with the Lions.
As part of league COVID-19 protocols, NFL teams are testing players every day and after Friday’s testing cleared the Saints for their Saturday flight to Detroit, Saturday’s tests returned with a positive result.
Currently, Burton is being rapid-tested to confirm his positive result and trying to determine if it is accurate or a possible false-positive, like what happened with Matthew Stafford in training camp.
Not only is Burton being retested, but contact tracing has identified three additional players who sat on the plane around him who are also being rechecked, including star running back Alvin Kamara.
This is just the latest in a sudden surge in positive test results around the league. This week, the NFL has already postponed the Titans vs Vikings game and delayed the Patriots vs Chiefs game to Monday or Tuesday.
Now, the Lions vs Saints game is in real jeopardy.
With the game scheduled to take place at 1:00 pm EST, the big question is: can the NFL get accurate test results they can feel confident in, in order to play the game on time, or will the league take a cautious approach and delay this game, as they did with the Patriots-Chiefs?
This is a developing situation. Stay tuned to Lions Wire for updates.
Any reasonable person has known for some time that if college football happens this fall it will look drastically different than ever before
Any reasonable person has known for some time now that should a college football season occur this fall, it will look drastically different than any other season we’ve ever seen. The only question was, how so?
The first domino in answering that question fell Thursday afternoon, as the Big 10 announced that it would be scrapping all scheduled nonconference games and moving to a conference-only football schedule.
Not only does this alter the schedules of Big 10 teams, but also every team that was scheduled to play a Big 10 team in non-conference play. As a result, it’s just a matter of time until the rest of the FBS makes the same call.
The PAC 12 has been reportedly considering doing the same for months now, and according to Stadium’s Brett McMurphy, the ACC is likely to move to a conference-only schedule, as well.
ACC football also expected to play conference-only games, sources told @Stadium. Last month, ACC commish John Swofford told @Stadium if Power 5 schools played conference-only schedules that ACC would assist Notre Dame with as many games as it needed
SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey said that the league will wait as long as possible to make final decisions but that it will also discuss the possibility of eliminating nonconference games.
These are important first steps from the Power Five, which until now hasn’t taken nearly as proactive a course as, for instance, the NBA has. But this also feels like an abrupt turn in strategy.
Just weeks ago, Ohio State Athletic Director Gene Smith suggested that they could put 40-50,000 fans in the stadium. On Thursday, his tone changed drastically.
“I am very concerned,” Smith said, when asked about playing fall sports in general. “I used to be cautiously optimistic, but I’m not even there now. When you look at our trajectory with the virus, we are either the worst country or one of the worst. We wanted September available to use to provide flexibility and control to handle disruptions.”
The Big 10’s announcement was less of a proactive step than it was a scramble. College football waited too long to take concrete steps to ensure the season could be conducted safely, and now the entire season is jeopardized.
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Most, if not all, Power Five leagues will do the same thing the Big 10 did. Most Group of Five leagues will, as well. But it’s not going to save the season.
Moving to a conference-only schedule is the last gasp from college sports administrators realizing the error of their ways. Because, though clearly a step in the right direction, nixing nonconference games isn’t the answer.
Sure, it keeps programs’ travel generally region-locked, but at this point, with over 3 million confirmed COVID-19 cases in the United States, spreading the disease to new places isn’t really the concern. The concern is keeping the thousands of players, coaches and personnel safe while somehow limiting collateral in the travel process. A conference-only schedule doesn’t begin to solve all of these problems.
There’s only one answer: delaying the season.
Right now, college football is setting itself up for a disaster. Administrators are either too stubborn or too invested to see the writing on the wall, and they’re going to create a massive headache for themselves.
Barring something unforeseen changing in the next month and a half, outbreaks will be an inevitability this fall. When that happens, the season will be stopped and either canceled or postponed.
Assuming this is the case, college football has two options: Delay the start of the season with the hope that a more normal season is possible later on, or devise a complicated plan for a fall start that will more likely than not fail, resulting in a delayed season anyway but with the added hurdle of dealing with a restart instead of just a delayed start.
The former option is, in my opinion, clearly superior. But it seems that those in power are more interested in the latter. When that comes to pass, the months wasted arguing about precisely how many fans can safely be shoved into metal bleachers will be all the more damning.
The Big 12 will be monitoring to see if there will be a delay to college football season. If there isn’t, games could be played with no fans.
The COVID-19 pandemic has taken its toll on sports, with all conferences throughout the country canceling spring athletic activities. While the future on health and safety is still unknown, the talk of football being delayed is already starting to be mentioned.
On a teleconference call Thursday afternoon, Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby said the conference will be doing a lot of monitoring throughout the next two to three months to see if there will be a delay to this year’s football season.
Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby said they will do a lot of monitoring the next 60 to 90 days to determine if there will be a delay to the football season
Even if there is a season, one of the routes taken by the Big 12 may be to not allow any fans in the stadium. Before canceling the NCAA Tournament completely, there was a plan in place to play each game without fans.
While it may be weird to picture Darryl K. Memorial Stadium with zero fans instead of 100,000, it may be the price football fans must pay in order to watch their teams play.
Big 12 commish Bob Bowlsby said there is a chance football games could be played this fall w/out fans in stadium but "it’s hard to forecast those things"
As of now, Texas is planning to open its season on September 5 at home against South Florida. Big 12 play for the Longhorns will begin on October 3 against Kansas State.
One by one the professional sports leagues and organizations canceled their events. It started with talk of playing in front of empty stadiums and then the NBA put their season on hold. Afterward, everyone followed suit. Even the NFL wasn’t immune …
One by one the professional sports leagues and organizations canceled their events. It started with talk of playing in front of empty stadiums and then the NBA put their season on hold. Afterward, everyone followed suit. Even the NFL wasn’t immune to the cancelations. The league decided to move skip its upcoming league meeting and push it off for a few months. Teams are pulling scouts off the road. The whole point of this is that we will have nothing to watch over the next few weeks. It’s time to binge-watch television shows and movies. Here are some suggestions to bide your team.
The Replacements (2000)
Keanu Reeves plays Shane Falco, a former Ohio State quarterback who never recovered from a bad bowl game. A funny note this is actually the second time that Reeves played a former Ohio State quarterback since his role as Johnny Utah in “Point Break” was also a former Ohio State quarterback.
Back to “The Replacements” which had Falco join a team of rag-tag players coached by Gene Hackman. It has some comedy, and it has some romance, and it has a kicker who smokes cigarettes. It’s a fun movie to pass the time.
Brian’s Song (1971)
“Brian’s Song” was actually an ABC television movie. If you want a good cry, watch this movie about terminally ill Brian Piccolo. The highlights are the parts where Gale Sayers and Piccolo interact at a time where race was still a large issue in America. It’s an old movie, but an absolute classic for any football fan.
What’s the hold up? Here’s a theory as to why Jason Garrett is still technically the head coach of the Dallas Cowboys in 2020.
Everyone on the outside expected Jason Garrett to be gone by now.
Heck, the Cowboys organization has more leaks than a dude in a fishnet stocking mask live-streaming himself robbing a swiss-cheese bakery… almost everyone inside the organization expected Garrett to be gone by now, too. One local TV anchor went so far as to tweet the entire staff was fired on Monday, but here the Dallas Cowboys are on Thursday afternoon and not a single move has been announced.
Owner Jerry Jones, 77, and his son Stephen cancelled their Tuesday afternoon radio spots on New Year’s Eve. No move was made on New Year’s Day and now Day 2 of the 2020 calendar and there’s been less movement than my Golden-Globe-worthy tree stump performance in the third-grade play. I was rivetingly grounded, but this is ridiculous, right?
Just one coaching staff member, who like Garrett and at least 15 others in the Cowboys employ have expiring/expired contracts, has been identified as interviewing elsewhere. That would be passing game coordinator and defensive play caller Kris Richard who is being screened by the New York Giants as this is being typed. Other than that, though, there’s a bunch of limbo and countless articles and social media discussions being had.
Everyone has a theory, and though I purposely avoided the topic for so long, something has to be written. I have no concrete evidence about what is transpiring, but neither do a lot of the insiders who have now written seven or eight articles by now, but I do want to gather my thoughts, just for posterity. Here are two thoughts I have about why Garrett is still employed. They are intertwined, but focus on two separate incidents that lead me to one quicksand-based stance.
The Tony Romo Factor
(Photo by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)
Remember back in 2016, when Tony Romo broke his back for the 17th time (exaggeration) and Dak Prescott took over as the No. 1 QB? That was the summertime, and through the amazing start Prescott had, week after week Cowboys Nation was ready, willing and anticipating the return of Romo.
Even Jones himself spoke glowingly about Romo returning to lead the playoff run almost up until the exact moment Romo took to the podium and relinquished his claim to the throne so Prescott could reign unimpeded.
Why bring this all up?
The following offseason, a still-under-contract Romo was the talk of the football universe as free agency approached. Were the Cowboys going to hold him to his contract and absorb the huge cap hit for a backup? Could they afford to? Which team was he going to be traded to? There were rumors everywhere as people tried to find the right fit. Finally, after 27 days of free agency, Romo retired on April 4 once he secured a gig as the next broadcast analyst superstar for CBS.
Almost a month went by, with Jerry Jones and the organization allowing themselves to be chastised by their fans, national media and any and everybody with a pulse about how they were doing Romo wrong by not trading or releasing him.
In reality, the Joneses were providing Romo cover; paying homage to someone who literally traded his future quality of life in the joint effort to win a Super Bowl. Romo was allowed to sift through employment choices, see what kind of interest there was for him in several different fields, while the Cowboys organization took shots to the chin as their loyalty and compassion was spoken of as incompetency.
Sound familiar?
My working theory, which I have no idea whether or not it’s wholly or partially true, is that the Cowboys are giving Garrett a chance to find out whether or not he is desired by one of the three other NFL clubs who currently have a head coach opening.
The Joneses are perfectly fine with being painted as incompetent here to allow Garrett a few days to test the waters and see what there is of interest on the coaching circuit.
And if he doesn’t find any of the current openings interested in him?
Well, he’s able to return to the organization in some capacity.
The Draft Commandment Invoked Early
Catalina Fragoso-USA TODAY Sports
Remember a few weeks ago, Jerry Jones went on the radio and talked about how difficult it would be for him to hire a collegiate coach. The reason why? Because the college coaches were busy on Sundays when the NFL was having their games. College coaches were reviewing their team’s Saturday game film and Jones thought it was going to take a long learning curve for them to acclimate themselves with the personnel at the professional level.
Earlier in the decade, I began chronicling a tell-tale accurate accounting of things relative to identifying the Cowboys’ plans during draft season. Often imitated, and sometimes outright plagiarized by some of the same folks milking the Garrett decision for every click possible, here was the 2019 version. The key commandment being invoked here? Listen to Jerry’s words, because he normally is telling the truth about his intentions.
We know of course that Jones’ only success as an NFL owner/GM has been with inexperienced former college head coaches. Both Jimmy Johnson and Barry Switzer were hired directly out of college jobs and they are the only hires who have brought Jones championships.
So what if Jones is hedging his bets?
What if Jones has a college head coach in mind, whether it be Oklahoma’s Lincoln Riley, Baylor’s Matt Rhule, Michigan’s Jim Harbaugh or (gasp) Alabama’s Nick Saban, and if Garrett doesn’t have a head coaching gig lined up, Jones wants him to serve as a senior advisor?
Not a GM, the Cowboys’ owner sees himself as the GM, the team has been steadily handing over more of these responsibilities to Stephen over the years and Will McClay is likely untouchable as the director of player personnel with a stellar track record since taking that role over in 2014. But as a senior advisor? The guy there to be a guiding hand to a college head coach and a new staff?
Jones is crazy enough to think such a hierarchy will succeed.
Jones would have the best of both worlds in that scenario. Garrett would be able to dish out all the dirt his brilliant and well-prepared (though slow to adjust in-game) Princeton mind on the Cowboys’ opponents. The owner would be able to keep Garrett employed in some fashion if the rest of the NFL world wasn’t interested in hiring him for 2020, and also allow Jones to dip into the pool of collegiate coaching talent.
Is this what’s happening?
Maybe.
Probably not.
But if you’ve been spending the last four days waiting on the shoe to drop, this might be the most entertaining theory you come across while we all wait on things to play out.
