Are you ready for some Wednesday afternoon football?
Are you ready for some football? Are all your rowdy friends gonna be with you on Wednesday afternoon?
Huh?
Yup. Wednesday afternoon. So long as the COVID-19 outbreaks on the Baltimore Ravens and, to a much lesser extent, the Pittsburgh Steelers remain more or less contained, their thrice-delayed Week 12 game finally will be played.
Often called the fiercest NFL rivalry of the young century, the visiting Ravens (6-4) and Pittsburgh Steelers (10-0) conclude their season series with a Wednesday daylight kickoff at Heinz Field (1:40 p.m. CTV2 and TSN, via NBC).
Technically, it's a grudge match for the Ravens, as they lost the front end of the home-and-home a month ago in Baltimore, 28-24. So they'd love nothing better than to stick the first loss of the season into Pittsburgh's ol' tomato.
But the Steelers seem to be holding something of a grudge, too — for all these delays. More than 20 Baltimore players from Monday of last week through Monday had been parked on the league's Covid-19/reserve list, for those either infected with the coronavirus or deemed a highrisk close contact of an infected person.
The former must isolate for 10 days minimum, the latter for five days minimum.
At least seven starters were among Ravens players unavailable to practise or play through Tuesday, including quarterback Lamar Jackson, prolific pass-catching tight end Mark Andrews, as well as two of the top three running backs (Mark Ingram and J.K. Dobbins).
Robert Griffin III will start at quarterback for Baltimore in Pittsburgh. His backup will be Trace Mcsorley, who came off Covid-19/reserve on Tuesday, as did nose tackle Brandon Williams.
Ingram and Dobbins, at least, were scheduled to come off Covid-19/reserve on Wednesday. Even though neither will be permitted to travel to Pittsburgh with their teammates, they'll join them there by game time.
When this game got postponed the first time, last Wednesday on the eve of the originally scheduled U.S. Thanksgiving prime-time game (Nov. 26), a few Steelers players sounded off about it. It's the second time this season one of their games had been postponed by the possibly reckless actions of an opponent, with regard to the strict NFL/ NFLPA protocols for mask-wearing and physical distancing within all team settings.
The Tennessee Titans had their own outbreak more than a month ago, and their scheduled game against the Steelers got postponed. That caused the Steelers' bye weekend to be moved — which torpedoed longmade plans some Pittsburgh players had with their families.
Well, that repeated this past weekend. Steelers players would have been off after having played the Ravens last Thursday night. As it was, Steelers players had to work through the weekend.
Steelers rookie receiver Chase Claypool of Abbotsford, B.C., last Friday tweeted this sarcastic comment after the game's second postponement, to Tuesday: “Thursday, no Sunday, OK Tuesday.”
But then the Steelers had their own mini-outbreak, this past Friday and Saturday. Four players were placed on COVID-19/ reserve: starting running back James Conner, starting defensive end Stephon Tuitt, backup right offensive tackle Jerald Hawkins and backup nose tackle Isaiah Buggs.
Even if the league can get this game in, finally, neither team will have much time to come up for air afterward.
In two other schedule amendments, Pittsburgh will play host to Washington Monday at 3 p.m., to create a doubleheader, ahead of the Buffalo “at” San Francisco game in Phoenix at 6:15 p.m. (a pandemic-caused venue switch). Baltimore will play host to Dallas on Tuesday at 6:05 p.m.
Then both the Steelers and Ravens will have short turnarounds again next week; Pittsburgh is at Buffalo on Sunday, Dec. 13, while Baltimore is at Cleveland on Dec. 14.