Tag: NFL COVID

CB Jason McCourty blasts NFL, NFLPA as Patriots deal with another positive COVID test

The Patriots are the latest team to have a full-blown COVID outbreak, and cornerback Jason McCourty wants answers.

On Sunday morning, reports came out that the Patriots have another positive COVID test to deal with. Per ESPN’s Adam Schefter, the test came back positive and the individual who tested positive is now being re-tested. If that re-test comes back positive, New England’s Monday game with the Broncos, which had already been postponed due to a positive test, would be in jeopardy, as the NFL has stipulated that teams have to have two straight days of no positive tests before any football activity can resume.

The Patriots traveled to Kansas City for last week’s Monday night game with the Chiefs three days after quarterback Cam Newton tested positive, and cornerback Stephon Gilmore, who had close contact with Newton, tested positive on Tuesday. At that point, head coach Bill Belichick made the decision to close the team’s facility from Wednesday through Friday, re-opening on Saturday for practice in preparation for a Broncos game that may now have to be postponed… again.

Cornerback Jason McCourty has been trying to get answers on league policy from the league and the players association, and he’s not happy with what he’s heard — especially about the fact that many who contract COVID don’t show a positive test until days after their initial exposure.

“I think outside of here, the people that don’t have to walk in our building — whether it is the league office, whether it is the NFLPA — they don’t care,” McCourty said this week. “For them, it is not about our best interest, or our health and safety, it is about, ‘What can we make protocol-wise that sounds good, looks good, and how can we go out there and play games?’ I think what I kind of learned personally throughout this situation is it is going to be up to us as individuals in this building to just really take care of one another.

“If you get a chance to talk to the NFL or the NFLPA, I’d greatly appreciate you bringing up that point and letting them know. That’s something we talk about, and we are dealing with it. We’re moving forward and it’s obviously in the back of our mind.

“That’s why we’re just trying to do everything we can — we’re distanced. Even today while we were in, we’re totally distanced, we all have masks on, we all have the Oakley shields on, and we have a mask on underneath our helmet. We weren’t in the building, really, at all today. So we’re doing the necessary things to stay as safe as possible.

“But without a doubt, that’s a thought — the same way you guys are sitting there thinking about it like, ‘Hey, they’re getting on a plane on Monday [to go to Kansas City], well, those days don’t really add up with the incubation period.’ That was the same question we were asking our union before we headed out there.”

If the Patriots-Broncos game is unable to go as scheduled, the league has a couple of options. It can try to move the game to Tuesday, which it already did with the Bills-Titans game after the Titans were once again unable to go through more than two days without more positive tests. At this point, that Tuesday game is unlikely to be played as the Titans announced yet another positive test on Sunday morning, bringing that team’s total to 24 players and staff.

Or, the league could move the game to later in the season. At this point, the Patriots are scheduled to have a Week 6 bye, and the Broncos’ bye is in Week 8. The NFL already moved the Week 3 Steelers-Titans game to Week 7, giving both teams a Week 3 bye, while moving the Steelers-Ravens game from Week 7 to Week 8 and giving the Ravens a Week 7 bye.

But obviously, and in a larger sense, the NFL is going to run out of options in a hurry. It may be that the best thing to do is to shut things down for a week or so, put an 18th week on the table, and get to the point where things are more manageable. Because McCourty is right: At this point, the NFL and NFLPA (who, ridiculously enough, haven’t even agreed no gameday testing) appear to be more concerned with optics than getting the COVID protocols to a more workable point.

As we have seen in the nation’s capital, that is not a paradigm that will go well for anybody involved.

It’s time for the NFL, NFLPA to agree on a ‘bubble’ scenario to save the season

The NFL and NFLPA must agree on a “bubble” if the two organizations want to see a full NFL season in 2020.

After Patriots cornerback and reigning Defensive Player of the Year Stephon Gilmore tested positive on Tuesday for COVID-19, New England’s Sunday game against the Broncos was put in jeopardy. The Patriots must now have two straight days of no positive tests before that game can go on as scheduled, and they’ve had three positive tests since last Friday — Gilmore, quarterback Cam Newton, and reserve defensive lineman Bill Murray.

On Wednesday morning, ESPN’s Dianna Russini reported that a player for the Raiders had tested positive for COVID-19. No surprise for a team that was recently fined by the league after several players appeared maskless for a charity fundraiser led by tight end Darren Waller, and whose head coach, Jon Gruden, seems incapable of wearing his mask on the sideline. The Raiders are scheduled to play the Chiefs this Sunday, but that’s now under watch for the same reasons. In addition, the Chiefs might want to get extra stringent about their testing, given these pictures of Gilmore hugging Patrick Mahomes after the Chiefs’ 26-10 Monday night win.

And given the Titans’ ongoing issues — they had two more positive tests this week, bringing the team total up to 22 players and staffers — it’s now looking like a schedule avalanche heading into Week 5. Neil Greenberg of the Washington Post sums it up neatly here:

On Monday, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell sent out a memorandum after a conference call with all 32 teams in which it was stated that there will be new and more comprehensive protocols, and adherence to those protocols will be more stringently monitored. In addition, penalties for refusal to adhere to those protocols will be punished by anything up to potential forfeits of games.

Not to steal Goodell’s thunder, but we’ve got forfeits in the rear-view right now, and objects are exactly as large as they appear. And the NFL is looking the concept of “unnecessary risk” square in the face. The league has several Trump bros at the ownership level, but even the most inexplicably fervent Trump supporter in any industry would not want to replicate the dumpster fire happening in the White House right now.

How to solve this — or, at least to mitigate the risk? The NBA, WNBA, NHL, and Major League Baseball have all worked with “bubble” scenarios in which players and staff are quarantined to a greater or lesser degree, and it’s time for the NFL and NFLPA to agree on a similar paradigm. Letting people wander wherever they want, and telling teams after the fact that they have to stay in their home cities on bye weeks, won’t be enough to save the NFL season from huge chunks of games being ripped out of the schedule, or the season being postponed or cancelled entirely.

If you think that’s alarmist, you don’t understand how this virus works.

The NFLPA has resisted a bubble, predominantly because the players don’t want it. Of course the players don’t want it. Nobody wants it. But it may be the only way to save the season, and the NFL already has the paradigm in place.

Every year for Super Bowl week, the NFL takes over two major hotels near the stadium, with media activities happening at or near the hotels, practices cordoned off to outsiders except for pool reporters, and expanded security measures for fans, media, players, coaches, and staff. For the league to expand that from two teams to 32 would be complicated, but not the logistical nightmare some may indicate. And when the NFL is clipping $14.5 billion in annual revenue with broadcast deals about to blow those numbers out of the water, cost is no excuse.

It is time for Goodell and NFLPA Executive Director DeMaurice Smith to sit down (with masks, and correctly socially distanced, of course) and hammer this out. Forget the complications. Forget the annoyed voices. The NFL is on the verge of a massive logistical and health crisis, and it must take all available measures to avoid it.

NFL announces postponement of Patriots-Chiefs game

The NFL has postponed the Patriots-Chiefs game based on Cam Newton’s COVID test. Will they have to postpone it again?

On Saturday morning, the news broke that Patriots quarterback Cam Newton had tested positive for COVID, and that all options were on the table for New England’s scheduled game against the Chiefs on Sunday.

Given the complications surrounding even one positive test among an NFL team, the game has now been postponed, per NFL spokesperson Brian McCarthy, to Monday or Tuesday.

After Newton tested positive, the Patriots released a statement in which the team said that no other players or staff had tested positive after receiving point of care tests. But that’s not the end of the story, unfortunately. When the Titans first experienced what has become a legitimate outbreak of positive COVID tests, the plan was for their Sunday game against the Steelers to be moved a day or two ahead. As the case numbers kept increasing, the league had to move the game to Week 7, with both the Titans and the Steelers receiving a Week 4 bye. This also moved the Steelers-Ravens game from Week 7 to Week 8, with Baltimore getting a Week 7 bye.

At this point, we don’t actually know whether the negative point-of-care tests reveal no additional cases beyond Newton’s, which is why the league has taken the first step of postponement. But at some point, Patriots players and staff will have to get on a plane to Kansas City, and the safety of that move is obviously in doubt.

In addition, per Ian Rapoport and Mike Garofolo of the NFL Network, Chiefs practice-squad quarterback Jordan Ta’Amu has tested positive for COVID.

Stay tuned, and don’t assume that you’ll see a Patriots-Chiefs game this week.

Eight Titans players have now tested positive for COVID; three more on Saturday

The Titans have now had eight players and eight team personnel test positive for the coronavirus.

The NFL had already postponed the Week 4 Titans-Steelers game due to the Titans’ rash of positive COVID tests. Through Friday, a total of five players and eight members of the team’s staff had tested positive for the coronavirus, per ESPN’s Adam Schefter, that number increased over the weekend.

So far, receivers Adam Humphries and Cameron Batson, nose tackle DaQuan Jones, linebacker Kamalei Correa, cornerback Kristian Fulton, long-snapper Beau Brinkley, and practice squad tight end Tommy Hudson have been placed on the team’s reserve/COVID-19 list.

The NFL thought it had put this problem to rest with the postponement of the Steelers game to Week 7, which also moved the Steelers-Ravens game from Week 7 to Week 8 and gave Baltimore a Week 7 bye. But the inability of the Titans organization to keep the virus in check — which, at this point in time, seems to be limited to just one organization — may well add further complications to the schedule, not to mention the obvious attendant health issues in the building.

The Titans are next scheduled to play on Sunday, October 18, when they ostensibly welcome the Texans to town. But given the scope of this outbreak — and at this point, that’s what we can call it, how is the league supposed to manage this?

NFL and NFLPA officials were in Nashville on Friday to investigate the cause. In addition, the NFL has sent memos to all 32 teams in which it is now mandated that daily testing will be extended, and all teams are required to stay in their cities during their bye weeks. The league also sent out a memo encouraging all players and staff to get flu shots.

But if the Titans keep coming up positive, it’s going to be something the league has to treat as a public health issue as opposed to a schedule quick. The good news is that the Vikings, who the Titans played in Week 3, have had no positive tests as a result, and will play the Texans this Sunday.

In a time when COVID outbreaks have obviously extended to the highest levels of American concern, this situation certainly bears monitoring.

Titans-Steelers game moved to Week 7; Steelers-Ravens game moved to Week 8

The NFL has made two schedule changes to handle the Titans’ COVID outbreak.

After a time of consideration regarding contingency plans in the face of the Titans’ ongoing issues with COVID, the NFL has endeavored to solve the problem created by the cancellation of the Titans-Steelers Week 4 matchup.

Per a league statement, the NFL has moved Tennessee-Pittsburgh to Week 7, and has also shifted the scheduled Week 7 Steelers-Ravens game to Week 8. Per the league, the Steelers and Titans now have a Week 4 bye. The Ravens’ bye, originally scheduled for Week 8, will now take place in Week 7.

Tennessee-Pittsburgh will now air on Sunday, October 25 at 1:00 PM ET on CBS. Steelers-Ravens will now air Sunday, November 1 at 1:00 PM ET on CBS.

The Titans are next scheduled to play the Bills on Sunday, October 11, but there’s no guarantee of that happening on schedule. Tennessee had two more players test positive for COVID, per ESPN’s Adam Schefter, bringing the total of players and team personnel to 13. The Titans’ facility is shut down until further notice.

On Friday, the NFL sent out a memo to all 32 teams with updated and more stringent testing and containment measures

“I told (the players) to try to mentally recover from an emotional few days so that we can proceed with our season and build on a 3-0 start – that was my message to them,” head coach Mike Vrabel said this week, when asked what he’s told his players about the delays.

“I’ve asked the players to decompress mentally, to try and take care of their bodies. And those players that are on the injury report to await instructions on when they would be able to go into treatment, with just a small numbers of players at a time with masks and face shields. I asked the staff to get away, to not meet, to not worry about Buffalo, to relax and to focus on moving ahead. That’s what I asked them all to do.”

The Titans will obviously have to get their internal issues under control before they’re allowed to play again. NFL and NFLPA officials are in Nashville today to assess the situation.

On Thursday, the Vikings — Tennessee’s Week 3 opponent — announced that their team had no positive tests, and are preparing to take on the Houston Texans on Sunday.

Report: A.J. Terrell to miss Sunday due to COVID-19

The Atlanta Falcons and the NFL face their first instance of a positive test during the season.

The NFL returned to football during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and made it through two weeks without any major setbacks. But the league on Saturday is now facing the first such instance, as Atlanta Falcons rookie cornerback A.J. Terrell is set to miss Sunday’s game against the Chicago Bears due to COVID-19 testing.

ESPN’s Adam Schefter was first with the news:

Schefter followed up the intial report with clarification on Terrell’s situation:

This will be a situation to monitor, in terms of additional testing. Hopefully the Falcons continue to have no other positive test results, and their game can go forward as scheduled on Sunday.

Report: No NFL players tested positive for COVID-19 going into Week 2 Sunday games

So far, the safety protocols the league has implemented to prevent coronavirus outbreaks seem to be working.

Travel was always our biggest concern in regards to the NFL being able to finish its 2020 season once it got started. Good news: after a week of games and teams flying across the country, so far the safety protocols the league has implemented to prevent coronavirus outbreaks seem to be working.

According to a report by Ian Rapoport at NFL Network, there were no positive tests on Saturday morning for any players across the league, clearing the way for today’s games.

The Panthers have had a couple of players on the reserve/COVID-19 list: offensive lineman Chris Reed and defensive back Derrek Thomas. Thomas was waived 12 days ago. Reed returned to practice in a limited capacity this week but he remains on the list for now.

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Despite false positive scare, NFL COVID testing numbers bring excellent news

Sunday’s news of a rash of false positive COVID tests was less than ideal, but the NFL’s actual testing numbers are much more encouraging.

As the NFL moves closer to balancing the logistics of a regular season with a pandemic overshadowing everything, there is good news to report. Per a Monday release from the NFL:

The National Football League today announced the COVID-19 monitoring testing results for August 12 – August 20.During this period, players and Tier 1 and 2 personnel were tested daily. Tier 3 individuals were tested weekly. Individuals who test positive for COVID-19 follow the joint NFL-NFLPA Treatment Protocol. They are immediately isolated, not permitted to travel with the team, access club facilities, or have direct contact with players or personnel. Club medical staff are in regular communication with individuals who test positive to monitor symptoms.

Monitoring Testing results for August 12 – August 20:   

  • ​58,397 tests were administered to 8,573 players and personnel.
  • 23,260 tests were administered to players; 35,137 tests were administered to personnel.

There were zero positive tests among players and six new confirmed positives among other personnel. 

As Mike Garafolo of the NFL Network pointed out Monday afternoon, the positive test rate when players and personnel reported to their respective training camps was 1.7% overall. In the next phase of testing, that number dropped to 0.46%. And now, counting all new tests, the league is at 0.01%. It’s a remarkable endorsement of the league’s protocols. And the zero positive tests among players is obviously encouraging.

This came one day after the league had to release a different statement — one that the league was much less happy to release.

Several NFL teams have postponed activities after it COVID tests from one lab, based in New Jersey, revealed a rash of positive tests.

Saturday’s daily COVID testing returned several positives tests from each of the clubs serviced by the same laboratory in New Jersey. We are working with our testing partner, BioReference, to investigate these results, while the clubs work to confirm or rule out the positive tests.  Clubs are taking immediate precautionary measures as outlined in the NFL-NFLPA’s health and safety protocols to include contact tracing, isolation of individuals and temporarily adjusting the schedule, where appropriate.  The other laboratories used for NFL testing have not had similar results.

As it turned out, there were 77 false positives from one lab in New Jersey, and all 77 turned out to be negative.

BioReference Executive Chairman Dr. Jon Cohen had this to say about that.

“On August 22, BioReference Laboratories reported an elevated number of positive COVID-19 PCR test results for NFL players and personnel at multiple clubs. The NFL immediately took necessary actions to ensure the safety of the players and personnel. Our investigation indicated that these were most likely false positive results, caused by an isolated contamination during test preparation in the New Jersey laboratory. Reagents, analyzers, and staff were all ruled out as possible causes and subsequent testing has indicated that the issue has been resolved. All individuals impacted have been confirmed negative and informed.”

Maybe the lab was understaffed?

Hopefully, this false alarm will solve the false positive problem that could turn into a logistical nightmare if it were to happen, say, the day before a game… but the better news here is that the NFL’s focus on daily testing and adherence to overall protocol has produced a positive (as opposed to false positive) result.

We can only hope that continues when the games start and players are bumping into each other at the normal rate.

Several NFL teams halting activities after receiving positive COVID tests from one lab

BioReference, one of several labs processing COVID tests from NFL teams, has the league looking into testing irregularities after a rash of positive results.

Several NFL teams have postponed activities after it COVID tests from one lab, based in New Jersey, revealed a rash of positive tests.

“Saturday’s daily COVID testing returned several positives tests from each of the clubs serviced by the same laboratory in New Jersey,” the NFL said in a Sunday morning statement. “We are working with our testing partner, BioReference, to investigate these results, while the clubs work to confirm or rule out the positive tests.  Clubs are taking immediate precautionary measures as outlined in the NFL-NFLPA’s health and safety protocols to include contact tracing, isolation of individuals and temporarily adjusting the schedule, where appropriate.  The other laboratories used for NFL testing have not had similar results.”

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Interestingly, the Chicago Bears pointed to the possibility of false positive tests in their statement on the matter:

This morning we learned yesterday’s Covid-19 testing identified nine players/staff as positive. We followed additional NFL-NFLPA testing protocol and confirmed all nine results as false positives. Out of an abundance of caution, we postponed this morning’s practice to this afternoon at 1:30pm.

The Browns have also run into this issue, per the team’s statement.

After consistently receiving encouraging results from daily testing since returning to the facility in July, the Cleveland Browns’ COVID-19 testing process conducted yesterday initially indicates multiple individual presumptive positive cases that include players, coaches and support staff. Although, we have received indication from the NFL that they are investigating irregularities in lab results that have also impacted other clubs, out of an abundance of caution, we will immediately follow our comprehensive Infectious Disease Emergency Response plan and pause any activity in our building today and conduct meetings virtually. As per plan procedure, the team is also diligently reviewing proximity data for contact tracing and instructed self-isolation for those who tested positive and others as appropriate even though they all remain asymptomatic. Our facility is currently undergoing a thorough deep-cleaning and disinfecting process and is closed to all personnel for the day. We will provide updates as testing results are confirmed and more information is available.

Per ESPN’s Kevin Seifert, the Buffalo Bills have also been affected, and that Bills general manager Brandon Beane said that 10-11 teams are impacted — which means that 10-11 teams are now part of a league investigation to determine whether or not the test results are accurate.

And the Jets have also been affected.

To call so many false positives an “irregularity” would be correct. As Tom Pelissero of the NFL Network indicates, “The NFL has conducted well over 100,000 COVID-19 tests since camp began with a positivity rate that’s a fraction of 1% and dropping. A sudden flood of positives from different testing sites, all processed by the same lab, raises a red flag.”

Several, in fact. According to MIT Medical, false positives are exceedingly rare.

The PCR test for COVID-19 works by detecting genetic material from SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. The genetic material from SARS-CoV-2 cannot be confused with the genetic material from other viruses, so the COVID-19 diagnostic test is highly specific. This means it almost never gives a false positive. If you are tested for COVID-19, and the test comes back positive, you can be very sure that you are infected with this virus. The new antigen test for COVID-19 is also very specific and rarely gives a false positive.

BioReference, which also provides testing services to the NBA and Major League Soccer, details its testing procedures on its website.

Antibodies are proteins produced by the body’s immune system to try to fight infection. BioReference offers a test that utilizes a blood sample to measure SARS-CoV-2 specific antibody levels, which correlate with a patient’s immune response after COVID-19 infection. Based on early evidence, antibodies are is expected to be elevated in the majority of patients by 14 days after the onset of symptoms. The timeline for antibody elevation in asymptomatic patients is still being studied.

So, we have one of two possible outcomes here. Either the New Jersey lab has irregularities in the tests it processed for the NFL, or the New Jersey lab results are correct, and the other labs the NFL are using are not accurate. While he league uses several different labs to avoid backlogs; the idea is to get the test results back within 24 hours.

There is also a new saliva-based test that has been rush-approved by the FDA, which is hoped to provide quick, inexpensive, and accurate testing at a higher rate. In June, more than one NFL general manager told Yahoo Sports’ Charles Robinson about the hope for a saliva-based test that was quicker and more affordable for everyone, and that, per Robinson, “it was one of the big hopes to keep fans safe and a season on track.”

NFL teams pausing activity due to COVID-19 tests

Several NFL teams hit the pause button on football activity Sunday after positive COVID-19 tests.

Professional sports leagues continue to balance the return to action during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the NFL is no exception. Recently, the testing numbers seemed to indicate that training camps were working to keep players healthy, but that may have hit a snag over the weekend.

According to Tom Pelissero, several teams decided to alter or cancel football activities on Sunday “after irregularities in results from Saturday’s COVID-19 test results.” The league released a statement as well:

According to Mary Kay Cabot of Cleveland.com, the Cleveland Browns had “double-digit positive COVID-19 tests from Saturday:”

That led to the Browns being one of the teams to pause football activities.

The Chicago Bears also found that nine members of the organization tested positive, although according to the organization these are being considered false positives after retests:

Hopefully this is just a testing issue, and not a sign of infectious spread.