Week 15 Covid List Discussion

[MWil23]

P.S.

This is exactly why I've advocated for a 2nd bye week, aside from the sham that is Thursday Night Football...AND I've advocated for a "week in between bye week" for the regular season and postseason.

You can move a game to that 2nd bye week, or if it's super late in the season, you move it to that "in between week" to be played the week before the playoffs.

You're going to have the AFC North decided this Saturday by an entire backup OL, a backup QB, practice squad receivers, multiple backup defensive backs, a backup tight end, and multiple backup defensive linemen.

We are talking about quite literally 10+ starters out, all of whom are completely vaccinated. 

Riddle me this NFL: How did you see this ending 16 months ago...and then instead of adjusting for 2021, you just added an extra game for that shameless short term cash grab, when you could have actually extended the season and added an extra week of TV revenue with a 2nd bye?

[skywindO2]

14 hours ago, Tk3 said:

The solution is going to have to be bringing in guys off the street to play on 2 days notice - and dealing with the consequences of that

I'm waiting for my phonecall tbh

[Tk3]

13 minutes ago, MWil23 said:

P.S.

This is exactly why I've advocated for a 2nd bye week, aside from the sham that is Thursday Night Football...AND I've advocated for a "week in between bye week" for the regular season and postseason.

You can move a game to that 2nd bye week, or if it's super late in the season, you move it to that "in between week" to be played the week before the playoffs.

You're going to have the AFC North decided this Saturday by an entire backup OL, a backup QB, practice squad receivers, multiple backup defensive backs, a backup tight end, and multiple backup defensive linemen.

We are talking about quite literally 10+ starters out, all of whom are completely vaccinated. 

Riddle me this NFL: How did you see this ending 16 months ago...and then instead of adjusting for 2021, you just added an extra game for that shameless short term cash grab, when you could have actually extended the season and added an extra week of TV revenue with a 2nd bye?

The longer the season is extended by extra games the more necessary this is anyways. Let's say its an 18 game season and we make it 20 weeks. There should be one bye between weeks 5-8 and then another between weeks 13-16. Essentially in the 2nd fifth of the season and the 4th fifth of the season.

 

As for the concept of rescheduling.. It's complicated. This covid thing is hard - although it should be a little easier than it was last year. At the minimum I'd like to see them be open to moving to Monday or Tuesday like they did last year if these are the type of cases where a couple extra days might matter toward getting them back on the field.

But it seems like for the 2021 season the NFL has been very clear that the schedule is the schedule, if you get in a bad position you have to deal with it, and those seem to be the rules for everybody this year.

[ReggieCamp]

I'd think at the very least, the NFL should move everyone to "enhanced protocol" or whatever they call it. The teams that got a few positives got moved to the enhanced protocol, and lo and behold, they get dozens of cases Something tells me all the teams are in the same boat. They just haven't been tested yet.

@Broncofan's posts about Omnicron tell the story, I think. It's a highly contagious variant with (believed to be) milder symptoms. You're dealing with healthy professional athletes who are 99% vaccinated. The current protocol should change immediately. It won't help the teams that get screwed this weekend, unfortunately.

I'm ready to be Vince Papale for my Browns.

[MWil23]

16 minutes ago, Tk3 said:

But it seems like for the 2021 season the NFL has been very clear that the schedule is the schedule, if you get in a bad position you have to deal with it, and those seem to be the rules for everybody this year.

This reminds me of the philosophy in Office Space where instead of firing Milton Waddams, they just stop paying him.

[incognito_man]

57 minutes ago, MWil23 said:

P.S.

This is exactly why I've advocated for a 2nd bye week, aside from the sham that is Thursday Night Football...AND I've advocated for a "week in between bye week" for the regular season and postseason.

You can move a game to that 2nd bye week, or if it's super late in the season, you move it to that "in between week" to be played the week before the playoffs.

You're going to have the AFC North decided this Saturday by an entire backup OL, a backup QB, practice squad receivers, multiple backup defensive backs, a backup tight end, and multiple backup defensive linemen.

We are talking about quite literally 10+ starters out, all of whom are completely vaccinated. 

Riddle me this NFL: How did you see this ending 16 months ago...and then instead of adjusting for 2021, you just added an extra game for that shameless short term cash grab, when you could have actually extended the season and added an extra week of TV revenue with a 2nd bye?

Absolutely need to replace a pre-season week with a 2nd bye. I can't believe the NFLPA didn't negotiate this. It seems SO obvious.

[Broncofan]

34 minutes ago, Tk3 said:

The longer the season is extended by extra games the more necessary this is anyways. Let's say its an 18 game season and we make it 20 weeks. There should be one bye between weeks 5-8 and then another between weeks 13-16. Essentially in the 2nd fifth of the season and the 4th fifth of the season.

 

As for the concept of rescheduling.. It's complicated. This covid thing is hard - although it should be a little easier than it was last year. At the minimum I'd like to see them be open to moving to Monday or Tuesday like they did last year if these are the type of cases where a couple extra days might matter toward getting them back on the field.

But it seems like for the 2021 season the NFL has been very clear that the schedule is the schedule, if you get in a bad position you have to deal with it, and those seem to be the rules for everybody this year.

To be fair, 1-2 more days isn't likely going to convert a whole bunch of players to be able to play under the current criteria.

Daily testing, masking indoors, and boosters are all part of the solution, but doesn't help the teams this week.   The hard part will be lowering the time to return - because it's not going to be easy to ever decrease a number, and still say you're promoting player safety.    But given the data with otherwise healthy vaxxed individuals (which is VERY preliminary with Omicron, but we know about the severity being less regardless, it's more if the same statements on transmissability while vaxxed still hold), there's a reason why the NFL is floating that weather balloon (and yes, it's all about being able to play the games on schedule, that's very 100 percent transparent).

[Broncofan]

17 minutes ago, incognito_man said:

Absolutely need to replace a pre-season week with a 2nd bye. I can't believe the NFLPA didn't negotiate this. It seems SO obvious.

It's coming......along with the 18th game.   20 weeks, 18 games, 2 bye weeks.   Might also allow teams to be coming off bye for TNF if you started 2 TNF Week 1 games, and then chose a diff matchup Week 2, and then only did TNF & byes from weeks 3-14, and then Sat football instead (when college has gone past their championship games).   So many birds covered with 1 stone - NFL gets more weeks of football for TV $, TNF issue gets solved, and more byes for stuff like this.   Of course players playing another game is iffy for them, but that's where the league is headed.   This wasn't about 17 games, it was about the 18-game schedule endgame IMO.

But yeah, NFLPA was incompetent for not standing on this with the 17th game - but their CBA allowed the NFL to impose this unilaterally - the language only required the NFL not to extend the start of preseason, and the end of the playoffs....so 1 fewer preseason game, and a 17th game ensued.   For the above to work, it's going to require a negotiated settlement (adding 2 more weeks to the reg season can't eliminate preseason altogether).

The NFLPA not having a 16-game schedule as fixed in the CBA was the real error.  And yes, unbelievably incompetent to say the least, but what else is new with the NFLPA.

Edited December 16, 2021 by Broncofan

[WizeGuy]

2 hours ago, Broncofan said:

The most recent data suggests that's it's over half the new cases in northern states and Canadian provinces this past week.    This is less than 3 weeks after the first official cases were reported.  The R factor is over 4 with Omicron (which 2 is the threshold for spreading quickly - for each person infected, they infect 2 more, with Omicron it's over 4, that's why once here, the numbers explode).   Any area with a high vaxx rate that had a fall increase, then a drop, then a big surge in the past 2-3 weeks - that's not explained by the usual factors of indoor clustering / more exposure, given what we know about the vaxx's effectiveness against Delta.    A surge now in December can't be explained by usual seasonal surge, when we've seen it earlier this fall, followed by dips/plateau.   A 2nd surge in regions, combined with a massive rapid spike in case growth (thankfully almost all mild, unless at-risk individuals <like pre-existing respiratory conditions or immunocompromised state>), can only logically mean Omicron is here.   The whole "antibodies waning" idea is pretty much never seen with pandemic-becomes-endemic viruses in the vaccine era - but more likely new variants that simply break through for infection (but fortunately with vaxxed population, aren't as severe - H1N1 year 2 being the most recent example).

Most importantly, the above was the logical scientific conclusion, but could only be confirmed once variant gene testing was done - which isn't routinely done in all cases, or in all states yet.     But the NFL pays for this testing, and the data now confirms Omicron is already here (see link below).    

Omicron being here is why the NFL & NFLPA are taking a different approach - because being vaxxed isn't enough to prevent infection now (but it does still prevent severe disease in otherwise healthy individuals, all the more reason to get vaxxed), the enhanced measures will need to be with Omicron, for the reasons cited above.   The flip side is that the 10-day can't-play window was determined in the unvaxxed era - data with players and otherwise healthy vaxxed individuals suggests this is longer than needed to prevent spread, and why weather balloons about shortening this window are going out in social media from national beat reporters.  Expect to hear more reports like Batista's below:

 

I'm a little uneasy to go that much in-depth on Omicron - but knowledge is power (but it's hard to get a clear picture, and there's far too much misinformation out there, a sad reality that's not going away), and it helps to have the objective picture to understand why the NFL is changing their approach midseason.   From a football perspective, Omicron's high transmissibility is an absolute game changer, also paired with lower severity in healthy adults, is why the NFL is considering sweeping changes, and the NFLPA is playing ball.   Expect to see enhanced measures, daily testing, and yes, even shortened windows before return to play for vaxxed (or even boostered) / asymptomatic players.

 

 

Oh wow, this is really going to mess with the remainder of the season. Yikes!

[MikeT14]

 

 

[Blackstar12]

3 minutes ago, MikeT14 said:

 

 

[Mastercheddaar]

48 minutes ago, MikeT14 said:

 

 

It's all fun and games until Las Vegas, Seattle and Philly all start having cases pop up on Monday/Tuesday next week. I doubt how it would hurt the NFL's bottom line if they postponed 3 games to Monday. If the cases are not that bad then give them 2 extra days to stop the spread/show negative tests. Have 2 games at 5 and 2 games at 8:30. Tada. Modern problems require modern solutions. 

MC

[e16bball]

28 minutes ago, Blackstar12 said:

That’s just about right. 

It’s worst on the DL, where we’ve been decimated.

We look to be without DE1 Chase Young (torn ACL), DE2 Montez Sweat (broken jaw/COVID), DE3 James Smith-Williams (COVID), DE4 Casey Toohill (COVID), and DE6 William Bradley-King (COVID). That leaves two rookies in DE5 Shaka Toney and DE7 Bunmi Rotimi as the only men standing, though they did go out and poach DE Nate “Angry” Orchard from the Packers’ PS.

We also look to be without DT1 Jonathan Allen (COVID), DT3 Matt Ioannidis (COVID), and DT4 Tim Settle (COVID). That leaves DT2 Daron Payne and DT5 Daniel Wise as the only men standing, though they did go out and add the well-traveled Akeem Spence off the street today. 

QB isn’t great. They’ve been without QB1 Ryan Fitzpatrick basically all year (hip) and now they’re looking to be missing QB3 Kyle Allen (COVID) as well. And QB2 Taylor Heinicke left last week’s game with a knee injury, so if he can’t go due to that or a positive test, it looks to be former Ole Miss standout Jordan Ta’amu getting the call at QB. [Interesting side note: Heinicke was actually Ta’amu’s backup for the XFL St. Louis Battlehawks]

Center has been devastated as well. They will be without OC1 Chase Roullier (broken leg), OC2 Wes Schweitzer (ankle), OC3 Tyler Larsen (Achilles/COVID), and OC4 Keith Ismael (COVID). It appears that former male model and OC5 Jon Toth will be manning the pivot.

Elsewhere, RT1 Sam Cosmi has been out for some time with an ankle injury, and now RT2 Cornelius Lucas is on the COVID list, leaving Charles Leno and Saahdiq Charles as the only healthy OTs on the roster.

Half of the starting secondary is now on the COVID list, with CB2 Kendall Fuller and SS1 Kam Curl just added in the last day. CB3 Benjamin St.-Juste was already on IR (concussions), so it’s only William Jackson and Danny Johnson standing between the world and a Corn Elder sighting at the moment.

They’ve lost TE1 Logan Thomas for the season (knee), and now two of his backups in TE4 Sammis Reyes and TE5 Temarrick Hemingway are on the COVID list. But frankly, we still have TE2 John Bates and TE3 Ricky Seals-Jones, so what am I even complaining about there? WR3 Cam Sims also found his way into the COVID list, and on the non-virus front, WR1 Terry McLaurin and RB2 JD McKissic are both dealing with concussions and are questionable at best. So the offense looks stacked. 

And just to add insult to infection, 5 of their top 6 ST players (David Mayo, Troy Apke, Khaleke Hudson, Toohill, and Smith-Williams) — and 8 of their top 12 (Cam Sims, Darrick Forrest, and Reyes) — are now on the COVID list as well. So all three phases look to be in fighting trim for the big game against Philly this weekend.

[MKnight82]

4 minutes ago, e16bball said:

That’s just about right. 

It’s worst on the DL, where we’ve been decimated.

We look to be without DE1 Chase Young (torn ACL), DE2 Montez Sweat (broken jaw/COVID), DE3 James Smith-Williams (COVID), DE4 Casey Toohill (COVID), and DE6 William Bradley-King (COVID). That leaves two rookies in DE5 Shaka Toney and DE7 Bunmi Rotimi as the only men standing, though they did go out and poach DE Nate “Angry” Orchard from the Packers’ PS.

We also look to be without DT1 Jonathan Allen (COVID), DT3 Matt Ioannidis (COVID), and DT4 Tim Settle (COVID). That leaves DT2 Daron Payne and DT5 Daniel Wise as the only men standing, though they did go out and add the well-traveled Akeem Spence off the street today. 

QB isn’t great. They’ve been without QB1 Ryan Fitzpatrick basically all year (hip) and now they’re looking to be missing QB3 Kyle Allen (COVID) as well. And QB2 Taylor Heinicke left last week’s game with a knee injury, so if he can’t go due to that or a positive test, it looks to be former Ole Miss standout Jordan Ta’amu getting the call at QB. [Interesting side note: Heinicke was actually Ta’amu’s backup for the XFL St. Louis Battlehawks]

Center has been devastated as well. They will be without OC1 Chase Roullier (broken leg), OC2 Wes Schweitzer (ankle), OC3 Tyler Larsen (Achilles/COVID), and OC4 Keith Ismael (COVID). It appears that former male model and OC5 Jon Toth will be manning the pivot.

Elsewhere, RT1 Sam Cosmi has been out for some time with an ankle injury, and now RT2 Cornelius Lucas is on the COVID list, leaving Charles Leno and Saahdiq Charles as the only healthy OTs on the roster.

Half of the starting secondary is now on the COVID list, with CB2 Kendall Fuller and SS1 Kam Curl just added in the last day. CB3 Benjamin St.-Juste was already on IR (concussions), so it’s only William Jackson and Danny Johnson standing between the world and a Corn Elder sighting at the moment.

They’ve lost TE1 Logan Thomas for the season (knee), and now two of his backups in TE4 Sammis Reyes and TE5 Temarrick Hemingway are on the COVID list. But frankly, we still have TE2 John Bates and TE3 Ricky Seals-Jones, so what am I even complaining about there? WR3 Cam Sims also found his way into the COVID list, and on the non-virus front, WR1 Terry McLaurin and RB2 JD McKissic are both dealing with concussions and are questionable at best. So the offense looks stacked. 

And just to add insult to infection, 5 of their top 6 ST players (David Mayo, Troy Apke, Khaleke Hudson, Toohill, and Smith-Williams) — and 8 of their top 12 (Cam Sims, Darrick Forrest, and Reyes) — are now on the COVID list as well. So all three phases look to be in fighting trim for the big game against Philly this weekend.

You left out how we're on our 3rd kicker but otherwise great recap. 

[Broncofan]

So that part about changing the timeframe and criteria for return to play after testing positive?   I’d expect this to be enacted next week, assuming public health authorities sign off (which I don’t think will be an issue).   I don’t think it helps teams out this week, however.