AsylumGuido

NFL Revamping COVID Testing Bodes Well For Full NFL Season

SEAN PENDERGAST | AUGUST 10, 2020 | 4:30AM

I think even the most tunnel-visioned sports fanatics would admit that they knew the return or sports amid a global pandemic was going to be a dicey proposition, with many peaks and valleys. The NBA's bubble in Orlando has been as close to flawless as it gets, with literally three straight weeks of "zero positive tests" reports on all of the tested players. Baseball has been largely clean, with two glaring, season-altering exceptions with COVID outbreaks in the clubhouses of the Miami Marlins and St. Louis Cardinals. College football, well, don't get me started.

And then there is the NFL, where in Houston, at least, it's so far, so good. The Texans have had zero players test positive for the coronavirus since training camp has begun, and they've had only one player (backup defensive lineman Eddie Vanderdoes) opt out of the 2020 season. Say what you will about the Texans' offseason, and my God, have we said a LOT, but Bill O'Brien, Jack Easterby, and the McNair family are managing the virus with great success and keen attention.

It hasn't been all peaches and cream elsewhere around the league, though. Some teams have been hit hard by the virus (Jacksonville had 12 players on the COVID reserve list at one point last week) and opt-outs (the Patriots had a league high eight players opt out of the season). False positive tests were an issue, too, with the most high profile case being Detroit Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford, who was put on the COVID reserve list for a couple days last week, before his false positive test was revealed.

That spurred the league to take action and try to fine tune its testing procedures, to where NFL teams will now have "point of care" testing at their facilities. Here is Pro Football Talk's Mike Florio with an explanation of the term and what it could mean to teams:

If you're someone whose positive mental and emotional state in the months of September through February is predicated on the existence of NFL football, this is really good news. The ability to get test results back quickly, and not have to ship out samples (with comes with all sorts of possible points of failure), is massive. It's costly, otherwise I'm sure college football would also be doing it (instead, we teeter on the brink of, at best, postponement to the spring for college football), but well worth it for the NFL to protect, at the very least, it's multi-billion dollar TV contracts.

Full disclosure, I am one of ten media members in town that gets to cover training camp with embedded access, and I am receiving my first COVID test this morning over at NRG Stadium. I'm anxious (in a good way) to see how this whole operations works. For now, the NFL is collectively working just as hard, if not harder, on COVID diagnosis and prevention as they are figuring out how to stop Patrick Mahomes and Lamar Jackson.

“The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” — Winston Churchill

AsylumGuido

The "point of care" testing is what I have been talking about as the key to a full season. The horror stories about football have been based upon infected players running rampant and passing the virus on every tackle. The fact is that these players and ALL other individuals with access are tested daily before any contact, social distancing or otherwise, with any other individuals. These precautions are far more extensive than any other industry. You and I are far more likely to contract the virus in a drive thru at McDonald's than these players are in any football related activity.

“The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” — Winston Churchill

AsylumGuido

A number of teams are still using regional labs to do their testing. This weekend 77 players from around a dozen teams tested positive and practices were halted, postponed or canceled for many of them. It turns out that the same lab (in New Jersey) was responsible for all of the tests which had apparently become tainted. All players were retested using "point of care" testing (which is more expensive) and it was determined that all 77 tests were false positives and there were in actuality no positive tests as has been the case most often thus far as training camps continue.

“The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” — Winston Churchill

AsylumGuido

AsylumGuido

SmashMouth

SmashMouth

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