COVID outbreaks across the league are too numerous to name, decimating rosters and forcing teams to field an uncompetitive product at times.
At what point do we see the Super Bowl delayed? Supposedly it was on the table last year; something like the NFL had booked out hotel rooms through a month ahead of the Super Bowl. IMHO, we are getting very near “pause the season” territory; college bowl are getting cancelled, and the NHL paused its season, for the 10 people in the US and the 40 million people in Canada that follow hockey.
i don’t think we will see any delay in the super bowl. the teams are the teams. they’ve adjusted the testing and are willing not to find out who is aymptomatic if vaxxed. how it affects individual teams…is where the variance comes in.
I suspect the super bowl has almost no testing. by then the unvaxxed players likely already had omicron and get the 90 day no test anyway (like rodgers).
Seems pretty probable for the Super Bowl, but what about the start of the playoffs? We’re getting very near that point, and the COVID lists continue to get out of control even today. You’d probably be pretty hard-pressed to find a team that doesn’t have at least somewhat major COVID problems right now, and some that have very major problems.
i have no doubt the covid list and protocols WILL impact playoff games. at least in that some players will be missing, even big name players.
I have real doubts that they will delay more than a couple of days.so many have already had it that those players won’t get re-tested soon. so many are vaxxed and won’t be tested due to new protocols unless showing (strike that - REPORTING) symptoms. there will be plenty of players to wear the right color jerseys and cover the committed to TV time slots. maybe a game is delayed a day or two. That’s it.
With the week padding between conference title games and the Super Bowl, is there a scenario in which all games get pushed back by a week, and keeping the Super Bowl on its original date? I really wonder if we’re nearing that point. It does remove padding between the conference title games and the Super Bowl, is the downside, of course.
But have there been any long term consequences from Covid for players or coaches? If they get infected and just have cold symptoms for a few days while they stay home, I have no beef with the league playing through that. It puts an inferior product out (ex 1 last nights game), but better than no product.
I’d bet that 95% at least of these cases are omicron just based on the difference in counts between October and December. Everything I’ve read about this variant is that it is not bad for those vaxxed and otherwise healthy.
Most people recover from myocarditis. I’ve heard that a few athletes have had permanent lung damage that affects their playing ability, but that was earlier in the pandemic. That seem less likely with vaccinated players risking omicron. And if some of them get permanent brain damage, aka, long covid, who will be able to distinguish that from CTE? (I mean, maybe it will be distingishable, but given how concerned the league is with protecting their players from CTE, I can’t imagine they are worried about covid.)
I also suspect that the risks of covid-induced brain damage to vaccinate young men who don’t have a lot of body fat will prove to be low.