Breaking: Titans and Vikings shut down facilities effective immediately
The #Titans had three new player positives and five new personnel positives for COVID-19, sources tell me and @MikeGarafolo. Both Titans and Vikings, who hosted them Sunday, will suspend in person club activities starting today. — Tom Pelissero (@TomPelissero) September 29, 2020
Both teams obviously had to suspend in person activities for the day due to the positive tests from the Titans. As of now no positive tests have come from the Vikings, considering the two teams played each other last Sunday and came into close contact with one another it’s unlikely the Vikings will get out of this COVID free. So as of now the Vikings are suspending activities out of caution. Clearly this isn’t going to be good for the Titans, Vikings, or the league as a whole.
The Titans will not be allowed in their building until Saturday. Everything will be done remotely. This is going to be a big challenge for the organization and the league. — Dianna Russini (@diannaESPN) September 29, 2020
I’d say a challenge is a bit of an understatement. The Titans won’t be able to practice together as a team until one day before kickoff against the Steelers. They won’t be able to run plays together, go over blocking schemes, literally nothing can be done in person. If one team can practice and the other can’t how is it fair to host a game against the two teams? Really puts one of them at a HUGE competitive disadvantage.
Soo.. The Titans aren’t allowed in their building until Saturday due to a Covid outbreak That means their game this Sunday against the Steelers will most likely be postponed… The Steelers will now probably have a bye. Seems like that’s considerably large news. — Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) September 29, 2020
It took three weeks for COVID to rear its ugly face at the NFL. Three glorious weeks of NFL action with no COVID tests and now we’ve got 8 on the Titans. I don’t know if the game will actually be postponed. If I’ve learned anything from the NFL its that this league is full steam ahead. No stopping it once it gets going. Money and rating are too important. If the game is cancelled its not like game can be made up during the Titans and Steelers actual bye weeks either. Their bye weeks don’t conveniently overlap. Boy would that have been nice. The NFL could have just said “screw it cancel this week four game they can play in week 8 when they both have a bye.” But NOOO, the Titans have a week 7 bye and the Steelers have a week 8 bye. Plus it’s not like the NFL can do some kind of half game double header like the MLB can. The NFL schedule is a giant jenga tower that could fall at the slightest wrong push or pull, and this feels like pulling a block from the bottom with no regard for how stable the tower is. Hopefully the jenga tower that is the NFL regular season can stay intact so that the rest of the season can be played, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous about a potential cancelation or multiple week postponement. This is fine, it’s all fine and dandy.
