The Tennessee Titans aren’t out of the woods yet in terms of their COVID-19 outbreak, as two more players tested positive for the virus on Wednesday after Tuesday’s round of testing.
This means that the Titans won’t be able to re-open their facility on Wednesday like they had hoped, and instead we’re looking at a situation in which their Week 5 game against the Buffalo Bills is in doubt.
NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero reports that the Titans-Bills game is still on for Sunday as scheduled, but that the league is “evaluating everything.”
ESPN’s Dianna Russini noted that rescheduling the game with the Bills to Monday or Tuesday in order to give the Titans more time is unlikely, as Buffalo has to play the Kansas City Chiefs on Thursday night in Week 6. She also mentions Tennessee forfeiting the game as a possible outcome.
If Tennessee has to meet the same requirements as last time in order to re-open their facility, the team would need three straight days of no positives from here, which would put them on track to get back into their building by Saturday. It isn’t clear if the same rule will apply, though.
If the same rule does apply, a Saturday re-entry wouldn’t leave any time for practice and the Titans would have to play the Bills after two weeks of no practice after being unable to do so last week. If the only other alternative is to forfeit and the game can’t be rescheduled, the Titans would have to make do.
It isn’t clear if the league is exploring this option, but it would seem the NFL could potentially move Chiefs-Bills to Sunday or Monday in Week 6, which would allow for Titans-Bills to be postponed to Monday or Tuesday in Week 5.
If the NFL wants to make its life easier as it continues to navigate a season in the midst of a pandemic, it makes sense for the league to tack on at least a Week 18 to the season, and quite possibly even a Week 19 for make-up games.
Reshuffling the schedule or forcing teams to forfeit every time there is an outbreak simply isn’t feasible, and the latter approach in particular isn’t fair if teams are following COVID-19 protocols correctly.
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