According to two people familiar with the investigation, it includes examining whether some Titans players gathered away from the team’s facility for impermissible workouts during the past week. That is being “looked into,” according to one of those people, but has not been substantiated.
The team had been directed that such gatherings away from the facility should not occur. Titans Coach Mike Vrabel has said repeatedly since last week that he is confident the team has complied with the sport’s coronavirus protocols. The Titans did not immediately respond to a request for additional comment.
The Titans could face discipline by the NFL if they’re found by the league and players’ union to have violated protocols, multiple people with knowledge of the NFL’s inner workings have said. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell wrote in a memo to teams Monday, sent after the league had conducted a call that day with head coaches and general managers to stress adherence to the protocols, that violations necessitating schedule changes or affecting other teams could result in game forfeits or the loss of draft picks.
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bye (game vs. Steelers ppd.) |
The Patriots are not practicing Wednesday and their facility likely will be closed, according to a person close to the situation. The Raiders will be permitted to practice because they had only one positive test, that person said.
It was too soon to know about the status of this Sunday’s games, according to that person. The Titans are scheduled to play the Buffalo Bills in Nashville. The Patriots are to host the Denver Broncos in Foxborough, Mass. The Raiders are on the road to face the Kansas City Chiefs in Kansas City, Mo.
The Titans have had the league’s first outbreak on a team this season, as the NFL operates during the pandemic with teams based in their home cities. The Titans’ game this past Sunday against the Pittsburgh Steelers in Nashville was postponed by the NFL until Oct. 25 in Week 7 of the season; 18 members of the organization, including nine players and nine non-players, tested positive in a six-day span ending Sunday. But two straight days with no further positive tests results had left the Titans hopeful they’d be permitted to reopen their facility Wednesday.
Instead, with the additional positive tests, the facility remained closed Wednesday and Sunday’s game against the Bills appears in jeopardy. The Titans have had positive tests involving 22 players and non-playing personnel since Sept. 24.
“We don’t want to reopen the Titans’ facility until we’re convinced that we’ve reached the end of the transmission event that occurred earlier this week and that we have put in place all the measures to keep everyone safe there,” Allen Sills, the NFL’s chief medical officer, said in a phone interview Friday.
The Patriots played Monday night at Kansas City. That game had been postponed from Sunday because of positive tests on both teams. Patriots quarterback Cam Newton tested positive, according to a person familiar with that result. The Patriots traveled Monday morning to Kansas City for the game in two planes, one for players who had been exposed to Newton and another for players who hadn’t.
Bill Murray, a defensive lineman on the Patriots’ practice squad, reportedly was placed on the team’s covid-19 reserve list Tuesday. That list is for players who test positive or have been exposed to the virus. He reportedly did not travel with the team to Kansas City. Patriots Coach Bill Belichick said after the game that he’d had no issues with the game being played.
“We’ve done everything right, everything we’re supposed to do,” Belichick said in a postgame video news conference Monday night. “So it’s in the hands of the medical people here.”
Gilmore was the NFL’s defensive player of the year last season. He played in Monday night’s loss and was photographed speaking with Kansas City quarterback, Patrick Mahomes, on the field after the game.
Newton reportedly has been asymptomatic. Under the NFL’s treatment protocols, he potentially could be cleared to rejoin the Patriots this week if their facility is open.
The Raiders reportedly placed defensive lineman Maurice Hurst on their covid-19 reserve list Tuesday. Raiders Coach Jon Gruden and the organization have been fined for failures to comply with the NFL’s protocols.
Gruden was among five NFL head coaches — along with Sean Payton of New Orleans, Seattle’s Pete Carroll, San Francisco’s Kyle Shanahan and Denver’s Vic Fangio — fined $100,000 apiece by the league for not wearing face coverings properly during games. The Raiders were also fined for unauthorized locker room access following a game, and tight end Darren Waller was fined along with nine other players after they were seen without masks at a fundraising event organized by Waller.
The NFL sent updated coronavirus protocols Tuesday to teams. They’d been outlined in Goodell’s memo Monday, in which he wrote that the league would use a video surveillance system to monitor teams’ compliance with the protocols at their facilities.
“Simply put, compliance is mandatory,” Goodell wrote in Monday’s memo.
“As we’ve said repeatedly, we expect to have new positive cases,” Sills said Friday. “No matter how careful everyone is or how stringent our protocols are, as long as this disease remains endemic in our society, it’s going to be extraordinarily difficult, if not impossible, to avoid any new positive cases. … Instead, we’ve focused on mitigation, which means when we do have a positive case that we try as best possible to prevent spread within any of our team communities or our league as a whole.”
