Ravens illustrate vulnerability to pandemic
‘You can’t test your way out of this. You can’t protocol your way out of this, either,’ says coach Harbaugh
In early August, three months before a coronavirus outbreak that would deplete his roster, sicken one of his top players and call into question a staff member’s conduct, Baltimore Ravens coach John Harbaugh said he couldn’t imagine many places safer than the team’s facility.
“You want to rank them, we are in the top five, I’ll tell you that, across the country,” he said Aug. 7, more than a week before the start of padded practices in Owings Mills. “So we’re right up there with anybody. We get tested every day, and we are wearing masks everywhere.”
For nearly three months, Harbaugh was right: Amid a pandemic, football was a haven. As infections in the United States mounted and the country’s death toll rose, the Ravens were safe. No positive tests. No symptoms. It was a season that required face masks, virtual meetings and Plexiglas partitions, but it was a season just the same.
Now, with 13 reported positive COVID-19 tests over the past nine days creating one of the biggest outbreaks in sports, the Ravens’ schedule is in flux. Amid a wave of infections in Baltimore, including star quarterback Lamar Jackson, the team’ s Thanksgiving Day matchup against the Pittsburgh Steelers was postponed to Sunday afternoon, then to tonight and now to Wednesday.
The NFL announced the most recent switch Monday after the Ravens placed starters Matthew Judon, Willie Snead and Mark Andrews on the reserve/ COVID-19 list.
On Friday, three Steelers players were ruled out because they’d either tested positive or been exposed to the virus. On Saturday, Pittsburgh running back James Conner and a coach tested positive, and the possibility of exposure to other team members threw the game into further doubt.
The episode has illustrated the vulnerability of even the National Football League’s best-prepared teams to a pandemic that’s claimed over 260,000 American lives, shut down cities and transformed daily life. When the Ravens returned to their facility this summer to prepare for a season with Super Bowl potential, they believed they could live up to the mantra printed for them on T-shirts: Test negative, stay positive. The past week has shown how difficult that can be.
“We all knew that us playing football would put us at a bigger risk,” outside linebacker Matthew Judon said Monday, the first of what’s become six consecutive days of reported positive tests.
“We knew we (could) obviously get the virus, and we all knew that this wasn’t something to be played around with.”
Injuries in any NFL season are inevitable. Before this season, Harbaugh seemed to accept that COVID -19 infections would be, too. The pandemic had changed how Ravens dined at the team cafeteria, how they interacted in the facility, even how they showered, “but that doesn’t mean you are going to
win 100 per cent of the time,” Harbaugh said in August. “You can’t test your way out of this,” he added.
“You can’t protocol your way out of this, either. This is going to run its course.”
But through the season’s first two months, the Ravens (6-4) kept the virus at a distance. The team didn’t lose a player to the reserve/COVID-19 list — designated for players who have tested positive for COVID-19 or been exposed to the virus — until Week 6, when defensive tackle Brandon Williams was held out of an Oct. 18 win against the Philadelphia Eagles.
Even that decision was precautionary; Williams hadn’t tested positive, but under the NFL’s protocols, his close exposure to an infected person required him to self-quarantine for at least five days while he continued daily testing.
In early November, the Ravens’ season started to go sideways.
A day after the Ravens squandered a chance to knock off a 6-0 Steelers team in Baltimore, All-Pro cornerback Marlon Humphrey announced he’d tested positive. Seven teammates, including four defensive starters, were identified as “high-risk” close contacts a day later, and the team entered the NFL’s intensive protocol, which requires virtual meetings and face masks at practice.
All seven teammates were cleared to return for that week’s game, a win over the Indianapolis Colts, and Humphrey was back by the start of practice the next week.
But the incident illustrated how quickly an event like the Ravens’ current outbreak could consume a team.
The team hasn’t practised since Monday, when Harbaugh announced that running backs Mark Ingram II and J.K. Dobbins had tested positive for COVID-19.
The tests had been taken one day earlier, before the team’s second straight loss and third in four games, an overtime defeat against the Tennessee Titans.
Subsequent contact tracing determined Williams, who hadn’t played in the loss to the Titans due to an ankle injury, was a close contact.
The team briefly closed its facility Monday and, after contact tracing was completed, the Under Armour Performance Center was reopened late. The team held a walk-through, with masks required, Monday evening.
By late Tuesday morning, the team announced all activities would be conducted virtually. The Ravens haven’t been in their facility since, and 18 total players have been placed on the reserve/COVID -19 list since Harbaugh reported Ingram’s and Dobbins’ positive tests.
An overwhelming majority on that list have reportedly tested positive, including Jackson, who’s set to miss Wednesday’s game while in quarantine.
Another of the Ravens’ stars, Pro Bowl defensive end Calais Campbell, indicated Friday on Twitter he was symptomatic, which could delay his return to team activities.
He called the virus “brutal” and said he prayed that “no one else has to go thru this.”
It’s unclear what impact the team’s decision to reopen the facility had on its outbreak. But, given the timing of the Ravens’ early cases, it’s reasonable to believe exposure first occurred in the lead-up to the Titans game, one public health researcher said.
Reserve quarterback Trace McSorley was placed on the reserve/COVID-19 list two days before the game, reportedly for testing positive.
The NFL has been administering two forms of COVID-19 testing as part of its protocols: daily PCR tests, which are more accurate but can take up to 24 hours to return results, and rapid-response antigen tests, used to confirm positive tests and identify active cases in the case of an outbreak.