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NFL and Covid Issues - Initially Asked in Shark Pool To Keep it 100% NFL (2 Viewers)

That they move all this for the Ravens (thus giving disadvantages to the Steelers by not also moving their next Sunday game)...and just saying Denver should put whoever at QB is nuts.  Also affecting other teams and competitive issues with seeing and so on.   Sure, be happy just having football...but man the inconsistency and selective moving of things and accommodating some is ridiculous.
It was covered earlier in the thread.

 
I’m sure been covered in this thread ad naseam, but every team should have a WFH Josh McCown $12K a week insurance policy in a pandemic year.

 
Yes and no...they have moved the next Ravens fame to Monday...why?  So Lamar will be able to play?  Why not move Pitt?  Since they are now losing “time off” again because of another team.

And does it make it safe with practice squad guys playing QB?  What if it’s practice squad guys playing LT?

IMO, they are making decisions around money before player safety
On that they've been 100% consistent.

 
I’m sure been covered in this thread ad naseam, but every team should have a WFH Josh McCown $12K a week insurance policy in a pandemic year.
That was a genius move by the Eagles, HOWEVER, Houston poached McCown for their active roster three weeks ago and the Eagles never signed a replacement for him.

 
I’m sure been covered in this thread ad naseam, but every team should have a WFH Josh McCown $12K a week insurance policy in a pandemic year.
I think a lot of them have met their #3 QB isolated. I know the Bills have kept Jake Fromm from the rest of the team so that if both Allen and Barkley get ruled out due to Covid they have an actual QB they KNOW they can put in there. Not a very good one, but at least one that knows the system now and is an actual QB.

 
ESPN's Adam Schefter reports the Ravens had two more positive COVID-19 tests Saturday.

Initially, Schefter said the Ravens avoided Saturday positives. But they now have 19 positives over the last week. The NFL seems intent on having the Ravens and Steelers play Tuesday night, but there's no way it can happen if both teams keep popping positives over the next couple days.

Ravens placed TE Mark Andrews on the reserve/COVID-19 list.

He's the latest Ravens player to test positive and will be out a minimum of 10 days if asymptomatic and 14 days if symptomatic. He's out for Weeks 12 and 13 after testing positive Saturday. Baltimore is involved in a full-blown COVID outbreak.

Ravens placed OLB Matt Judon on the reserve/COVID-19 list.

Judon and Mark Andrews are the latest Ravens to test positive, so both will be out for Weeks 12 and 13 at minimum. Judon is tied for the team lead with four sacks and is playing on the franchise tag. The Ravens have had 11 players test positive over this past week.
and because you knew it was coming:
 

NFL Network's Ian Rapoport reports the NFL is considering "local bubbles" for the playoffs.

That would mean "isolating all personnel in hotels except to go to and from the team facility and strictly enforcing limitations on who is permitted inside to interact with players," according to Rapoport. The NFL reportedly considers that more feasible than regular-season bubbles for all 32 teams or one giant bubble, like the NBA used. Baltimore is currently dealing with an outbreak that has already sidelined their reigning MVP Lamar Jackson and pushed their game back twice, notably moving it off the primetime spot on Thanksgiving. The NFL has shown a willingness to take drastic measures to keep their season intact and it may take one more to make it through the playoffs. 

- Ian Rapoport
 
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Fines:
 

ESPN's Adam Schefter reports the Saints have been fined $500K and a 2021 seventh-round draft pick for "post-game maskless celebrations," after their Week 9 win over the Buccaneers.

The Saints were previously fined for mask usage violations and the NFL has already established the precedent of taking away draft picks after the second infraction. A seventh-round pick isn't worthless but NFL teams continue to be lax with their usage of masks, distancing, and symptom reporting. The NFL may need to hit a team with more than a Day 3 pick removal to get better results from their new rules.

NFL Network's Ian Rapoport reports the Patriots have been fined $350K for COVID-19 rules violations stemming back to their outbreak in October. 

Rapoport didn't say what the exact violations were but we know they are related to their outbreak in October that sidelined Cam Newton and pushed their Week 4 game versus the Chiefs back a few days. The NFL has fined every team that has violated the rules and stripped a late-round pick away from all second-offenders. The Patriots have been mostly free of positive tests since their October incident so it seems like they may have fallen in line after their lone outbreak.

 
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NFL Network's Ian Rapoport reports the NFL is considering "local bubbles" for the playoffs.

That would mean "isolating all personnel in hotels except to go to and from the team facility and strictly enforcing limitations on who is permitted inside to interact with players," according to Rapoport. The NFL reportedly considers that more feasible than regular-season bubbles for all 32 teams or one giant bubble, like the NBA used. Baltimore is currently dealing with an outbreak that has already sidelined their reigning MVP Lamar Jackson and pushed their game back twice, notably moving it off the primetime spot on Thanksgiving. The NFL has shown a willingness to take drastic measures to keep their season intact and it may take one more to make it through the playoffs. 

- Ian Rapoport
I would think some playoff-bound teams might want to do this right now.  Or at least doing it for any player/personnel that wants it.

 
NFL Network's Ian Rapoport reports the 49ers could play the remainder of their home games in the Cardinals' stadium due to COVID-19 restrictions in Arizona.

Santa Clara County, where the 49ers' home stadium is located, recently released new COVID-19 restrictions that banned all contact sports and mandated a 14-day quarantine for anyone traveling into the area from 150 miles away. With no exceptions made for their professional football team, the 49ers are unable to play their home games in the Bay Area for now. The Cardinals are reportedly willing to accommodate their NFC West opponent. The 49ers could also move to a stadium in Texas. 

SOURCE: Ian Rapoport on Twitter

Nov 29, 2020, 9:06 AM ET

 
ProFootballTalk's Mike Florio reports "at least one more" Ravens players tested positive for COVID-19 on Sunday.

The Ravens' outbreak hasn't been fully contained as two Ravens tested positive on Saturday and more are being announced. The NFL is doing everything they can to not cancel games this late into the season, but Tuesday's Steelers vs. Ravens game is pushing the limits. The difference between this game and other coronavirus games is that there's an outbreak, not just isolated cases. Well over a dozen Ravens players and staff members have tested positive in the last week.

- ProFootball Talk

 
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I feel for the Niners. Sounds like they’ll most likely need to go play somewhere else for the remainder of the season and can’t just go home in between either. So if they want to finish up their season, the players will all need to leave their family for a month including over Christmas. That’s rough.

 
I feel for the Niners. Sounds like they’ll most likely need to go play somewhere else for the remainder of the season and can’t just go home in between either. So if they want to finish up their season, the players will all need to leave their family for a month including over Christmas. That’s rough.
It sucks. AZ will likely be our “home” stadium for a while. Ah well, not like there’s a home field advantage anywhere. 

Good win today. 

Watchng football today maybe 5% of players know how to wear a mask. Nose uncovered most of the time, sometimes the whole mask is a chin strap. :doh:  And post game handshakes and hugs with opponents. No wonder teams are getting ravaged. 

 
I feel for the Niners. Sounds like they’ll most likely need to go play somewhere else for the remainder of the season and can’t just go home in between either. So if they want to finish up their season, the players will all need to leave their family for a month including over Christmas. That’s rough.
Goes into effect today.  They were supposed to fly back in last night so they shouldn't have to quarantine but still won't be able to practice inside of the county.  They aren't planning to practice until Thursday.

 
Here's an update on the Baltimore roster:

Red = on COVID list
Blue = currently on practice squad (strikethrough = on COVID list)
Positional designations are from team website and other sources.

QB: Lamar Jackson, Robert Griffin III, Trace McSorley, Tyler Huntley
RB: Mark Ingram, Gus Edwards, J.K. Dobbins, Justice Hill, Ty'Son Williams
FB: Patrick Ricard
WR: Willie Snead, Miles Boykin, Dez Bryant, Jaylon Moore
WR: Marquise Brown, Devin Duvernay, James Proche
TE: Mark Andrews, Luke Willson [Q], Sean Culkin, Eric Tomlinson
RT: D.J. Fluker, Jake Rodgers [recent acquisition on exempt list]
RG: Ben Powers, Matt Skura, Tyre Phillips [Q] [on IR but possibly eligible to be activated], R.J. Prince
C: Patrick MeKari, Trystan Colon-Castillo
LG: Bradley Bozeman, Ben Bredeson, Will Holden
LT: Orlando Brown Jr

DT: Calais Campbell, Justin Madubuike, Broderick Washington, Aaron Crawford
NT: Brandon Williams, Justin Ellis
DE: Derek Wolfe [Q], Jihad Ward
RUSH: Yannick Ngakoue, Pernell McPhee, Jaylon Ferguson
MLB: Patrick Queen, Chris Board, Kristian Welch
WLB: L.J. Fort, Malik Harrison, Aaron Adeoye
SAM: Matthew Judon, Tyus Bowser, Chauncey Rivers
LCB: Marcus Peters, Jimmy Smith [Q], Davontae Harris [recent acquisition on exempt list], Nate Brooks
SS: Chuck Clark, Anthony Levine Sr., Nigel Warrior
FS: DeShon Elliott, Jordan Richards, Geno Stone
RCB: Marlon Humphrey, Tramon Williams, Nate Hairston, Pierre Desir

P: Sam Koch
K: Justin Tucker
LS: Morgan Cox, Nick Moore

edit: I added players who are listed as Questionable [Q] by the team. At this point it looks like the Ravens could have as many as 51 eligible players to fill a 48-man gameday roster.

 
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Peter King gives a fantastic recap of the last week and questions about in this week's Football Night In America
 

In chilly Owings Mills, Md., Sunday evening, on the bucolic grounds of the Baltimore Ravens training center, the strangest week in recent NFL history was beginning to wind down. A voluntary conditioning workout was underway, with maybe half the non-COVID-positive players on the team. The reality of the 2020 NFL season was setting in for anyone who didn’t quite understand it.

The Ravens hadn’t practiced in nine days. They had an estimated 20 players on their COVID reserve list. They were down 10 starters, including their MVP quarterback, best defensive lineman, best pass-rusher and two best running backs, lost to the virus wracking America and now the NFL. And whatever was left of the Ravens would be traveling to Baltimore to play the 10-0 Steelers, maybe the most powerful of the Pittsburgh teams since the dynastic teams of the seventies.

Think of it: Not only are the Ravens down half of their starters, but the remaining neophytes like Trystan Colon-Castillo—he’s a center likely to see his first action Tuesday, probably with Cam Heyward frothing to get his shot at the green kid—will have zero practice time before facing an undefeated team.

There was no expectation around the team that the league would postpone the game, because the NFL won’t. On Sunday, the NFL began emphasizing with its media partners a memo sent from Roger Goodell to teams on Oct. 13 that said, basically, that the league would play games if enough warm bodies were available to fill the uniforms and an internal-team contagion wasn’t in progress. “Medical considerations and government directives will be paramount in determining when a game should be postponed,” the directive to all teams from Goodell said. “In light of the substantial additional roster flexibility in place for this season, absent medical considerations, games will not be postponed or rescheduled simply to avoid roster issues caused by injury or illness affecting multiple players, even within a position group.”

A head coach and two GMs were fired in a 28-hour span over the weekend, but COVID events blew those three headliners away. Baltimore being down 20 players going to Pittsburgh; Denver suddenly losing all four quarterbacks to COVID protocols and having to play an NFL game without an NFL quarterback; and the 49ers being told suddenly they were being booted out of their home because of county protocols and forced to find a new place to play (San Diego? Phoenix? Dallas? Oakland?) with two “home” games in the next 13 days.

But really, what did you expect?

In a country that never took the raging virus seriously enough, and with a full-speed-ahead ethos coming from the commissioner, what did you expect?

In the middle of the NFL laying the groundwork for the next round of billion-dollar media negotiations, with a country voracious for some normalcy like NFL games, what did you expect?

It’s up to the teams to somehow, some way, make it work. So there was this strange sight in the press-conference room adjacent to the Denver Broncos locker room at their home field Sunday afternoon, four hours before kickoff against the Saints: Quarterback coach Mike Shula and offensive coordinator Pat Shurmur were working with presumptive quarterback Kendall Hinton—who hadn’t played the position since losing the job at Wake Forest two years ago—on about 10 percent of the playbook, making sure he had his mechanics and a few plays down. Hinton played 25 snaps against the league’s third-rated defense. He completed one of nine passes for 13 yards, with two picks and a Blutarski rating. Zero point zero.

What did you expect?

*****
More in the article.

 
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Give em the L
I know the NFL is against forfeits but when you force the Broncos to play without a QB aren't you essentially doing that?     I don't see much of a point playing this game when the Ravens are still in the middle of an outbreak when the likely outcome is a loss anyway, considering they are down 20 players.

To keep other players safe they should cancel Tuesday's game and not reschedule it for week 18 since they didn't do that for other teams that were severely shorthanded and had to play. 

I don't really care whether they give the Ravens the loss or just go by winning percentage but playing the game at this point is dumb and dangerous.

 
I know the NFL is against forfeits but when you force the Broncos to play without a QB aren't you essentially doing that?     I don't see much of a point playing this game when the Ravens are still in the middle of an outbreak when the likely outcome is a loss anyway, considering they are down 20 players.

To keep other players safe they should cancel Tuesday's game and not reschedule it for week 18 since they didn't do that for other teams that were severely shorthanded and had to play. 

I don't really care whether they give the Ravens the loss or just go by winning percentage but playing the game at this point is dumb and dangerous.
The dangerous part is putting a bunch of practice squad players out there against the best team in the nfl. Those guys will get killed. Plus they could possibly injure a Pitt player with poor technique or hazardous play. 

 
Here's an update on the Baltimore roster:

Red = on COVID list
Blue = currently on practice squad (strikethrough = on COVID list)

QB: Lamar Jackson, Robert Griffin III, Trace McSorley, Tyler Huntley
RB: Mark Ingram, Gus Edwards, J.K. Dobbins, Justice Hill, Ty'Son Williams
FB: Patrick Ricard
WR: Willie Snead, Miles Boykin, Dez Bryant, Jaylon Moore
WR: Marquise Brown, Devin Duvernay, James Proche
TE: Mark Andrews, Luke Willson, Sean Culkin, Eric Tomlinson
RT: D.J. Fluker, Jake Rodgers [recent acquisition on exempt list]
RG: Ben Powers, Matt Skura, Tyre Phillips [on IR but possibly eligible to be activated], R.J. Prince
😄 Patrick MeKari, Trystan Colon-Castillo
LG: Bradley Bozeman, Ben Bredeson, Will Holden
LT: Orlando Brown Jr

DT: Calais Campbell, Justin Madubuike, Broderick Washington, Aaron Crawford
NT: Brandon Williams, Justin Ellis
DE: Derek Wolfe, Jihad Ward
RUSH: Yannick Ngakoue, Pernell McPhee, Jaylon Ferguson
MLB: Patrick Queen, Chris Board, Kristian Welch
WLB: L.J. Fort, Malik Harrison, Aaron Adeoye
SAM: Matthew Judon, Tyus Bowser, Chauncey Rivers
LCB: Marcus Peters, Jimmy Smith, Davontae Harris [recent acquisition on exempt list], Nate Brooks
SS: Chuck Clark, Anthony Levine Sr., Nigel Warrior
FS: DeShon Elliott, Jordan Richards, Geno Stone
RCB: Marlon Humphrey, Tramon Williams, Nate Hairston, Pierre Desir

P: Sam Koch
K: Justin Tucker
LS: Morgan Cox, Nick Moore
gulp emoji

 
Just for a football point off view I wonder if Steelers will treat this at a preseason game and mostly play back ups......or as usual underplay their easy opponents and make it a close game for no reason

 
Just for a football point off view I wonder if Steelers will treat this at a preseason game and mostly play back ups......or as usual underplay their easy opponents and make it a close game for no reason
I'd see them playing hard the first half and if they are destroying them by like 25-30 points, put in the backups the rest of the way. 

 
Peter King gives a fantastic recap of the last week and questions about in this week's Football Night In America

On Sunday, the NFL began emphasizing with its media partners a memo sent from Roger Goodell to teams on Oct. 13 that said, basically, that the league would play games if enough warm bodies were available to fill the uniforms and an internal-team contagion wasn’t in progress.
Since the Ravens still have an ongoing problem, they should be forced to take the loss.  The Steelers should not be forced to take the field against anyone from the Ravens organization at this time.

 
I would like to repeat that forfeits lead to players on both teams not getting paid for the week.  As bad as it was for Denver players yesterday I'd bet consensus was close to 100% on the team they'd rather play and get paid then forfeit 1/16th(or 1/17th) of their pay. That needs to be considered when everyone just wants teams like Ravens to take the L, why should Steeler players lose a chunk of their pay?

I give the NFL very high marks for how they have handled this going all the way back to free agency and the draft not seeing interruptions. The one glaring thing I think they did wrong, and it may very well have been to do with their TV partner,  was not having more flexibility to push the SB back and building in a minimum of two bye weeks into every teams schedule.

 
But they haven't assigned wins/losses all year and it's NOT as much of an ongoing problem at this point; they identified the cause and are contact tracing effectively plus no new infections have been reported SO FAR for Sunday. And:

The forfeit concept doesn’t seem like it’s going to be a part of the game. Lots of issues with it, even if a team suffers some positive tests by ignoring strict adherence to protocols. If a game’s not played, does the perpetrating team get a loss in the standings, and does its foe that week get a win just for having the good fortune of being on the schedule that week? If a game’s not played, by agreement with the players union, players are not paid that week; that’s not going to work. The NFL seems to believe a bit in Hammurabi’s Code this season: If the Broncos’ quarterbacks messed up in protocol behavior (they admit to being lax with mask-wearing in an off-day film session with one positive player in the room who they didn’t know was positive at the time), then the Broncos should suffer for it. That’s not the reason the NFL gave for not allowing Denver to push Sunday’s game back a day or two, but it’s a sort of eye-for-an-eye byproduct. The NFL said if the Broncos had enough able-bodied players, well, tough luck.
Baltimore has bodies who can play. Now, if they continue getting positives today then the game might get postponed, but that is a last resort for the NFL.

 
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What are the chances this game gets cancelled with that many people out?
This should explain exactly how the NFL will handle this & the likelihood of cancellation.

:doh:

I took the weekend off from markets to monitor puppy (just got neutered - ouch!) and fill Black Friday orders, so I was able to watch a full slate of games. I was dumbfounded by the inability of players to wear a mask properly. Some wore it like a chinstrap, others had their nose hanging out. And of course post-game handshakes, hugs and whatnot. 

And people wonder why there was such a massive outbreak. It's just all so dumb. 

 
https://twitter.com/tompelissero/status/1333458816218918914
 

Tom Pelissero @TomPelissero

Here’s where Tuesday’s game stands, per sources: If all the #Ravens’ COVID-19 tests come back negative this afternoon, the plan is to practice and travel to Pittsburgh tonight. If any more players or Tier 1 personnel test positive, the game most likely would be postponed again.

...

If there is an additional positive test(s), the decision on whether the game can proceed Tuesday will depend in part on who it is. Was it someone the NFL medical experts anticipated might test positive? Part of the outbreak or unrelated community spread? All that will factor in.

 
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I give the NFL very high marks for how they have handled this going all the way back to free agency and the draft not seeing interruptions. The one glaring thing I think they did wrong, and it may very well have been to do with their TV partner,  was not having more flexibility to push the SB back and building in a minimum of two bye weeks into every teams schedule.
I give them very low marks on team/player education & handling of COVID-related issues. If a team has an outbreak because they failed to follow protocols, the NFL should WORK WITH THE TEAM to reinforce protocols. For example, players still do not know how to wear a mask. That's insane. I saw 50 examples of this on the sidelines yesterday. 

But they try to handle it with after the fact fines and penalties to make an example of the team. They also practiced the same stupid protocols that caused the outbreak at the White House, in that they believed testing was enough. You can't fine a virus to teach it a lesson. There's a reason the NBA bubble worked. 

The Ravens current ####show is a glaring example of how absolutely terribly the NFL has managed this. The reason they've been able to play through this many weeks isn't because they did a great job - it's because they don't GAF about it unless it jeopardizes a game because then it hurts their bottom line. 

There's absolutely no way they should let this game be played on Tuesday night. Everyone on that Ravens team should be considered an at-risk player for transmission, and the Steelers will very very likely have more cases after they play. 

 
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Just for a football point off view I wonder if Steelers will treat this at a preseason game and mostly play back ups......or as usual underplay their easy opponents and make it a close game for no reason
From a purely football point of view they'll probably send out the starters and run it up 42-6 and then put in the backups. Don't play down to the level of the Ravens decimated rosters. Destroy what they do send out to play. It's a divisional game. 

If the game gets played. 

 
From a purely football point of view they'll probably send out the starters and run it up 42-6 and then put in the backups. Don't play down to the level of the Ravens decimated rosters. Destroy what they do send out to play. It's a divisional game. 

If the game gets played. 
This.  Regardless of the players names, the uniform is the same.  It's their biggest rival and a huge division game.  Run it up as much as possible during the first half, and run out the clock in the 2nd half.

 
So a team can have 8 consecutive days with a positive test for covid, but as long as they have 1 consecutive day with all negative tests, then they can have a game the following day?  Well ok.

 
So a team can have 8 consecutive days with a positive test for covid, but as long as they have 1 consecutive day with all negative tests, then they can have a game the following day?  Well ok.
Yeah it makes zero sense. With as many cases as they have, how can they be so sure somebody isn't still in the incubation period? 

Just seems crazy.

 

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