NFL reveals its COVID protocol priorities after Dez Bryant tests positive for virus
The NFL’s multi-million dollar plan to “keep players safe” was exposed as little more than a marketing ploy when Tuesday’s Cowboys-Ravens game was played despite Dez Bryant being removed from the field after testing positive for COVID-19 shortly before kickoff.
It’s one thing to suspect that the protocols were a well-meaning charade, but it’s quite another to watch your suspicions being confirmed in real time during Fox’s pregame show.
On Tuesday night, Baltimore hosted Dallas in a game that should have been played last Thursday, before being moved to Monday, and then Tuesday, because of COVID.
Before the game, former Cowboys receiver Dez Bryant was on the field with his new Ravens teammates. Then he revealed, via his Twitter account (of course) that he had tested positive for coronavirus.
“Tell me why they pull me from warming up so I can go get tested... my [test] come back positive... I tested positive for Covid,” Bryant wrote Tuesday evening. (This is a cleaned up version of his Tweet.)
Dez then proceeded to use Twitter as a therapist’s couch.
Dez followed that up with a Tweet in which he threatened to “quit for the rest of the season.”
This was just moments after Fox aired its pre-recorded interview with Dez, during which studio analyst Tony Gonzalez praised Dez’s maturity.
“I’m about to drink some wine and cope,” he posted.
Welcome to the club, Dez. Most of us have been doing that since mid-March.
But I digress. Football games and football practices are being delayed, paused, suspended or canceled, all over the country when a player tests positive, and yet those whose job it was to make such a call for the Cowboys-Ravens game seemed to treat Dez’s news like it was a light rain.
Play on.
The game was neither delayed, postponed nor canceled. Get your priorities straight, people. We need live TV programming. Contact tracing doesn’t pay the bills.
This was all after photographers clearly shot pictures and video of Dez interacting, closely, with both Ravens and Cowboys players. There were handshakes. There were hugs.
So he tested positive for COVID-19, and thus potentially exposed both the Dallas Cowboys and Baltimore Ravens players to the virus. And yet, the band played on.
It doesn’t make sense, and yet it makes perfect cents. And dollars.
The NFL has lost millions from having to play its games with few to zero fans allowed in the stands. The league, and its TV partners, just want games to offset some of these losses.
The Denver Broncos played a game in which all of their quarterbacks were ruled out, either because of positive COVID cases or a possible exposure to the highly contagious virus. The NFL should have postponed the Broncos’ game against the New Orleans Saints on Nov. 29, but instead the Broncos had to start reserve receiver Kendall Hinton at quarterback with less than 24 hours notice.
The visiting Saints won 31-3. Hinton did have a 13-yard completion. Problem is, those were the team’s only passing yards for the day. That was not an NFL game. Fans who watched aren’t getting back those three hours. And if the cardboard cutouts filling the Denver stadium asked for a refund, you might have to consider obliging them.
Don’t be surprised if the Detroit Lions are forced to dress a Labrador to play quarterback in the waning weeks of the season.
The NFL players may knock and rip the league for the NFL protocol and procedure standards that change daily, but the NFL Players Association signed off on this mess.
When the league, and the players, moved forward to play this season during a global pandemic, the sort of situation we witnessed in Baltimore on Tuesday night was seemingly inevitable.
It was one thing to suspect such an event would occur, but it was quite another to witness it all in real time, and then follow it on Twitter, too.
The NFL had to put procedures and policies in place, but when Dez Bryant was yanked off the field after testing positive for COVID-19 and then both teams played anyway, our most cynical fears were confirmed.
The priority is to Play 60, not to protect the players.
