It was this past Sunday that the Denver Broncos had to play an actual football game without a quarterback. That’s due to the questionable NFL COVID-19 policies around the league.
Meanwhile, the Baltimore Ravens Week 12 game was postponed three times after originally being scheduled for Thanksgiving night. It took place on Wednesday with Baltimore losing a close affair to the undefeated Pittsburgh Steelers.
The backdrop here is drama surrounding the NFL COVID-19 policy as the pandemic continues to spread unabated around the United States.
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Executives blast NFL COVID-19 policy
“I don’t give a damn if you have to move offensive players to defense or whatever to fill a team. I just disagree (with postponing Baltimore’s game),” the personnel executive said, via NFL Media’s Tom Pelissero. “They are making adjustments for one team, and it just seems way out of bounds because everybody else is getting hammered.”
Meanwhile, a member of the Denver Broncos’ organization was even more boisterous in his criticism of the NFL COVID-19 policy. “The league is f**ked up,” the unnamed individual said.
Commissioner Roger Goodell has attempted to explain away the NFL COVID-19 policy to no avail. He noted that the Broncos’ outbreak was contained to the quarterback room. Hence, why they still played Sunday rather than the game being pushed back. As for the Ravens, their outbreak was still spreading around the organization.
That’s all fine and dandy on the surface. But there’s something to be said about teams being at a competitive disadvantage. That was obviously the case for the Broncos during their 31-3 loss to the New Orleans Saints on Sunday. Practice squad wide receiver Kendall Hinton started at quarterback. He completed 1-of-9 passes for 13 yards in the loss.
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Roger Goodell and the NFL COVID-19 policy
Goodell noted earlier in the week that there’s no plans for the NFL Playoffs to be played in a bubble despite the success we saw with the NBA, MLB and NHL moving to bubbles during the pandemic.
This out-of-touch mentality comes with the United States breaking daily COVID-19 records. As of publication of this article, the U.S. had seen 210,000 new cases and 2,706 confirmed deaths from the virus over the past 24 hours. In fact, the United States has had more COVID-19 cases in the past 48 hours than Canada throughout the duration of the pandemic.
Despite this, Goodell and Co. seem to think that it’s going to somehow be immune from the increasing virus. From an NFL COVID-19 policy perspective, competitive balance issues will continue as long as Goodell keeps up with this charade.