Isn't this exactly why the practice squads were expanded?
Isn't this the perfect time to put those protocols to good use?
Why is one team going to have to rearranging everything because another team has a problem?
It is all such a head-scratcher to me. But I get it, the haters will come at me and say I don't have any compassion and, more so, I'm no epidemiologist. That's fine, fire away.
But here you go …
I'm not so sure the NFL should be in the business of dominoing their schedule just because three players --- and five team personnel members --- from the Tennessee Titans tested positive for COVID-19.
Gosh, I sure hope that isn't the case. There are some ways to handle this, in my opinion. Going and scrapping this game and pushing it to a later date should be the absolute last resort.
Don't get me wrong, I understand the severity (or at least potential severity) of all of this but I also understand there can be just as much danger in overreaction as anything else.
You see, as we got news on Tuesday morning of these cases in the Titans' organization and subsequent shutdown of their facility until further notice (at least that's the plan right now) I couldn't stop thinking if there was another, more practical way than what the NFL is doing.
Stay with me here: Couldn't the solution be to test every member of the Titans organization starting right now and all the way up until game time? And, in that process, if you still have those same positive cases you quarantine the impacted individuals and move on. Like I said, you test all the way up until game day to get as close to sure as possible there aren't any more cases.
If the NFL isn't going to be in the business of doing that, then the real, true only solution is to shut the Titans down for two weeks as we have been told the gestation period for COVID is fourteen days. I mean, if the NFL really wants to push it all the way through and satisfy the ultra-careful, wouldn't they have to shut the Vikings (who played the Titans this past Sunday) down for a couple of weeks as well?
The proposition of holding an NFL season before there was a vaccine for COVID was always going to come with risks. It was always going to about mitigation tactics and keeping the numbers down rather than a total eradication --- which is pretty much an impossibility unless you want to be locked into a bubble.
That said, this isn't the problem of the Pittsburgh Steelers right now.
This certainly wasn't done on purpose. And more than likely not done because of negligence or laziness.
But that's tough.
Too bad.
Life sucks.
This is the Titans' issue. It ain't the Steelers' issue.
If they have enough healthy players, they should be made to play.
If the Titans can grab guys --- even guys off their practice squad ---- and field a team, you kick the ball off on Sunday and make them play.
Isn't that why we put these measures in place?
