The NFL is facing their first Covid crisis of the regular season, as the Tennessee Titans and Minnesota Vikings have officially shut down training facilities after three players and five staffers tested positive for COVID-19. Then early Wednesday, the league announced the Titans game with the Steelers would be moved to Monday. Or Tuesday.
Closing the team facility means nobody is allowed in the building. That includes players, and that means no practicing for the undefeated Titans and the winless Vikings, who could certainly use more practice. Making up a regular season game is almost impossible, so the NFL will do everything possible to play the game. Tennessee head coach Mike Vrabel was an All-American at Ohio State and a Super Bowl winner with the Patriots, so he’s experienced about everything you can in a three-decade long football career. Except for something like this.
“I know there’s going to be a lot of questions about the game and about who’s to blame and where it started. Nobody’s to blame. We’re in a pandemic,” Vrabel says.
The Minnesota Vikings play at Houston on Sunday and so far that game has not been postponed or re-scheduled. The Minnesota head athletic trainer says there will be “very enhanced protocols” put in place once the team gets back to work.
Are you asking yourself if an NFL game has ever been played on a Tuesday? The answer is yes. In 2010, the Eagles moved their game against the Vikings to a Tuesday to avoid a blizzard that was getting ready to pummel Philadelphia. Before that, it hadn’t happened since 1946.
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