Six feet apart: it’s the new athletic stance.
Social distancing is one of the ways to stop the spread of COVID-19, and health officials recommend at least six feet of distance between individuals. The objective is obtainable in regular life, but is a challenge in the NFL.
As pro football bends itself around a pandemic, the league has determined ways to come up with enforcing social distancing. For the Houston Texans, the answer lies in a proximity device called Kinexon, which weighs about half an ounce and can be worn on the wrist or around the neck.
“For each person, when they come in, they get their tracking device and it’s handed to them upon arrival right after they test,” executive vice president of football operations Jack Easterby said. “They wear them all day. They wear them in their jerseys. They wear them around their necks, depending on where they want for comfort.”
The devices help keep players, coaches, and “really essential people to our operation,” out of the mix with individuals whose jobs aren’t yet critical to the business of football.
“If you get too close, they beep, which is really cool because it gives you an awareness of other people that may be around you,” said Easterby. “Also, if we do get a situation where we have an outbreak, we understand that it tracks who overlaps with who, so that we know specifically who we would have to quarantine.
“It’s an educational device. It’s also a warning device. It doubles as both of those things. So far it’s been working really well for us.”
The Texans do not have any positive COVID-19 cases on their roster as of July 31, and part of the reason has been because of the measures the club has taken inside their own facilities. As the old football adage goes: control what you can control.