NFLPA Working to Re-Schedule Browns vs. Raiders Game [update: postponed until Monday, WFT-Eagles and Sea-Rams Tuesday]

[Captain Hindsight]

22 minutes ago, aristocrat said:

Both WFT qbs have the covid so they are

 

 

Yikes. Could be guys starting this week that have been with the team less than 48 hours

[The Frankish Reich]

Can’t remember where I saw this,

but in the category of weird/unexpected/possibly meaningless stats—

Total passing yards in first 16 NFL starts (all-time):

1. Patrick Mahomes

2. Nick Mullens

[The Frankish Reich]

I saw that WFT signed Garrett Gilbert and misread that as Gale Gilbert. Not really such a stretch - last year when the Broncos were in this situation they asked for permission to activate a 40-something assistant coach who had last played QB in college two decades earlier. Permission denied, which is how Kendall Hinton got his start. 
Wouldn’t these teams be better off just going full wildcat/no QB/heavy formation and see what happens? A/k/a Belichick wind formation but without the Mac Jones getting in the way?

[BarleyNY]

17 minutes ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

No, not at all.   If two players got infected from different sources outside the facility, and there is no evidence of spread within the facility, that's very different than having several players become infected from contacts inside the facility (which is what Dr Allen Sills comments appear to infer is a concern)

A bigger issue is that the NFL only randomly checked three teams, including the Browns and Rams.  Both of those have double digit cases.  That apparently has not led to additional teams being tested at the level those three were, which sure seems like a prudent thing to do.  To me that looks like the league is trying to get more games played rather than limit the spread of disease. 
 

The Browns went through normal protocols before practice on Wednesday which means that unvaccinated players were tested.  The team practiced.  Then AFTER practice they were told that the entire team had to be tested.  That’s when the positive results came rolling in.  Allegedly 3 teams got this random full team testing. 

Edited December 17, 2021 by BarleyNY

[TheBrownBear]

16 minutes ago, Captain Hindsight said:

Yikes. Could be guys starting this week that have been with the team less than 48 hours

This could be great for the careers of Nathan Peterman, EJ Manuel and JP Losman (can he still throw a football?)

[Steptide]

Wild theory here: any chance (with all these sudden out breaks) that the vaccine could possibly cause a positive test result months later? I'm no Dr by any means, but crazy how all these players who vaccinated are suddenly testing positive

[Hapless Bills Fan]

3 hours ago, BarleyNY said:

A bigger issue is that the NFL only randomly checked three teams, including the Browns and Rams.  Both of those have double digit cases.  That apparently has not led to additional teams being tested at the level those three were, which sure seems like a prudent thing to do.  To me that looks like the league is trying to get more games played rather than limit the spread of disease. 
 

The Browns went through normal protocols before practice on Wednesday which means that unvaccinated players were tested.  The team practiced.  Then AFTER practice they were told that the entire team had to be tested.  That’s when the positive results came rolling in.  Allegedly 3 teams got this random full team testing. 

 

I don't particularly like Baker, but he's absolutely correct that this is bogus, and if the concern is player safety every player on every freakin' team should be tested, like Now.

 

2 hours ago, Steptide said:

Wild theory here: any chance (with all these sudden out breaks) that the vaccine could possibly cause a positive test result months later? I'm no Dr by any means, but crazy how all these players who vaccinated are suddenly testing positive

 

We ask folks to avoid general discussion here.  The answer is "No", I will explain in the Covid thread in OTW.
Edit:

 

The probable reason the vaccinated players are testing positive is that they are infected with Omicron variant.  The normal PCR test has a distinctive pattern when the infection is Omicron, which can then be confirmed by sequencing isolated virus.

 

 

[PolishDave]

13 hours ago, billsfan89 said:

The NFL shutting down for a week would be very easy to do. I also think a second bye week would only help the quality of play.

 

What about all the people who have scheduled events for the game - including local venues, hotel reservations, plane reservations, Airbnb, scheduled time off from work, etc.      Shutting down affects way more than just the players.    And what are you going to do if the number of infections go up the following week?   Keep it shut down?   

10 hours ago, Doc Brown said:

Agreed.  There's enough evidence now that this thing doesn't spread during games.  I doubt the NFL changes their policy to that degree though.

 

Really?  There is good evidence of that?

[Hapless Bills Fan]

3 minutes ago, PolishDave said:

Really?  There is good evidence of that?

 

That was said last season, based upon contact tracing of positive tests and viral genome sequencing which is a very accurate way of pinpointing the source of the virus for places (like the NFL) that have the pocketbook to do it.

 

However, there is of yet no evidence one way or another regarding in-game spread with the new variant Omicron.

[Robert Paulson]

28 minutes ago, Steptide said:

Wild theory here: any chance (with all these sudden out breaks) that the vaccine could possibly cause a positive test result months later? I'm no Dr by any means, but crazy how all these players who vaccinated are suddenly testing positive

omicron breakthroughs, mild but still positive

[Big Turk]

NFL says nope.

[ngbills]

Dont like rescheduling. If you cant play you forfeit. Otherwise the NFL is now deciding when to reschedule or not. So if only Allen is out vs the Pats we would play. But in other cases because a bunch of guys ae out you get more time for guys to play. 

Edited December 17, 2021 by ngbills

[Patrick Duffy]

1 minute ago, ngbills said:

Dont like rescheduling. If you cant play you forfeit. Otherwise the NFL is now deciding when to reschedule or not. So if only Allen is out vs the Pats we would play. But in other cases because a bunch of guys ae out you get more time for guys to play. 

I guess maybe it depends how many players on the roster(s) are positive in determining to reschedule or not?? Then again Denver was forced to play last season with lots out while couple other teams got rescheduled not missing nearly as many.

 

So no idea how it can go, maybe they just make decisions on the fly as they go.....

[Hapless Bills Fan]

8 minutes ago, Sheneneh Jenkins said:

I guess maybe it depends how many players on the roster(s) are positive in determining to reschedule or not?? Then again Denver was forced to play last season with lots out while couple other teams got rescheduled not missing nearly as many.

 

So no idea how it can go, maybe they just make decisions on the fly as they go.....

 

Heh.  It came out after the season why the NFL was "heartless" regarding making Denver play without a QB, and why they were all declared "close contacts" and out too late to make any other arrangement, like signing a guy off practice squad etc.

 

Basically the Denver QB removed their contact tracking devices and put them in the four corners of the meeting room so it looked like they were too distant to be close contacts.  When the NFL reviewed the facility video on Saturday, they discovered that the QBs were in fact sitting close together at a table watching film together and had "cheated" the system.

 

https://touchdownwire.usatoday.com/2021/09/07/broncos-kendall-hinton-covid-protocols/

 

And they lied about it:

 

So the NFL said "Nope, Denver, you made your damned bed, you lied about it, now you lie in the bed you made"

 

2 hours ago, aristocrat said:

Both WFT qbs have the covid so they are

 

 

 

https://www.nbcsports.com/philadelphia/eagles/washington-football-team-puts-3-more-players-covid-list

[Hapless Bills Fan]

https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2021/12/16/nfl-should-immediately-return-to-daily-testing-for-all-players/

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/32876158/nflpa-again-pushes-nfl-reinstitute-daily-testing-covid-19

 

The NFL's rationale was that vaccinated players (data from preseason) were 7x less likely to get Covid, and that everyone with symptoms would test and almost all players with Covid had symptoms of some sort (again, data from preseason). 

 

Now there's a new variant, and it appears both those assumptions are no longer valid. 

 

 

 

[ngbills]

28 minutes ago, Sheneneh Jenkins said:

I guess maybe it depends how many players on the roster(s) are positive in determining to reschedule or not?? Then again Denver was forced to play last season with lots out while couple other teams got rescheduled not missing nearly as many.

 

So no idea how it can go, maybe they just make decisions on the fly as they go.....

I just dont like "rewarding" a large outbreak. Not that an outbreak is always due to negative actions. I just dont trust the NFL to be fair in deciding what teams have to play and what teams get to reschedule. If you want a level playing field they just need to follow the rules of testing positive. If the Bills had 40 guys break their ankles would they reschedule or tell the Bills to scour practice squads for a full roster?

[Patrick Duffy]

2 minutes ago, ngbills said:

I just dont like "rewarding" a large outbreak. Not that an outbreak is always due to negative actions. I just dont trust the NFL to be fair in deciding what teams have to play and what teams get to reschedule. If you want a level playing field they just need to follow the rules of testing positive. If the Bills had 40 guys break their ankles would they reschedule or tell the Bills to scour practice squads for a full roster?

 

I'm with you here all day. Agreed, sadly and unfortunately that's not the only thing I don't trust with the NFL.

[The Frankish Reich]

47 minutes ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

Basically the Denver QB removed their contact tracking devices and put them in the four corners of the meeting room so it looked like they were too distant to be close contacts

I didn’t know that - hilarious in a “Drew Lock must have been involved” kind of a way. 

[Lagoon Blues]

17 hours ago, quinnearlysghost88 said:

MAKE THEM PLAY WITH REPLACEMENTS!!! DO IT! 

#16 Shane Falco takes the field. 

[Hapless Bills Fan]

24 minutes ago, ngbills said:

I just dont like "rewarding" a large outbreak. Not that an outbreak is always due to negative actions. I just dont trust the NFL to be fair in deciding what teams have to play and what teams get to reschedule. If you want a level playing field they just need to follow the rules of testing positive. If the Bills had 40 guys break their ankles would they reschedule or tell the Bills to scour practice squads for a full roster?

 

I understand that, although the NFL could address this by being transparent: handing the decision over to an independent panel of medical experts/epidemiologists, and explaining what the basis is.

 

The fact that the NFL did NOT choose to be transparent about why they did what they did in the Denver situation (and it came out through "sources" after the season), casts doubt on their willingness for any sort of transparency.