After a fourth Tennessee Titans player tested positive for COVID-19 on Monday, the NFL has made the decision to postpone the Titans’ Sunday game to Monday or Tuesday, per ESPN’s Dianna Russini. That report was confirmed by Ian Rapoport of the NFL Network.
The NFL released this statement soon after the news broke:
The Steelers-Titans game, originally scheduled for Sunday at 1 p.m. ET, will be rescheduled to allow additional time for further daily COVID-19 testing and to ensure the health and safety of players, coaches and game day personnel. Details on the new game date and time on either Monday or Tuesday will be announced as soon as possible.
The Titans closed their team facilities until at least Saturday after it was revealed that four players — including nose tackle DaQuan Jones, long-snapper Beau Brinkley and tight end Tommy Hudson — tested positive, as well as five members of the Titans’ staff. Last Saturday, before the team played the Vikings, all tests had come back negative. At this time, no member of the Vikings’ organization has tested positive, so there appears to be no delay in Minnesota’s Sunday game against the Texans.
The NFL does not require teams to be tested on gamedays, but the Monday morning tests revealed the positive results. It is not known whether the Saturday tests truly reveal no positive cases, as it can take 5-7 days for an infection to register in a test, per public health guidelines.
All teams involved will receive daily tests through the week, so this is a fluid situation.