Titans-Steelers rescheduled, more COVID-19 diagnoses

The Tennessee Titans find themselves back in a waiting mode, hoping the NFL allows them back inside their headquarters by Tuesday.

Their game against the Pittsburgh Steelers is now postponed until later in the season because of the league’s first COVID-19 outbreak.

The NFL postponed Sunday’s game in Nashville after one additional Titans player and one personnel member tested positive for COVID-19. The announcement T hursday mor ning came a day after the league said it hoped to play the game either Monday or Tuesday. The NFL said a new game date will be announced “shortly.”

Coach Mike Vrabel informed his Titans of the newest positive tests and the NFL’s decision to postpone the game at a team meeting Thursday morning. That puts Tennessee — and Pittsburgh — on a bye week several weeks ahead of schedule.

Vrabel said they hope to allowed back inside their building Monday or Tuesday.

“I told them to try to mentally recover from an emotional few days, so that we can proceed with our season, build on a 3- 0 start,” Vrabel said.

When the Titans are allowed back inside their facility depends on the daily testing results. They had one positive test last Saturday with outside linebackers coach Shane Bowen, which prevented him from traveling with Tennessee to Minnesota for a 31-30 win. The Vikings returned to work at their facility Thursday.

The Titans are scheduled to host Buffalo (3- 0) on Oct. 11 depending on the results of daily testing.

On Tuesday, the Titans (3- 0) placed three players on the reserve/COVID-19 list, including key players defensive captain and lineman DaQuan Jones and long snapper Beau Brinkley. Outside linebacker

Kamalei Correa became the fourth on that list Wednesday.

With the two new cases, the Titans’ total is now 12: five players and seven other organization members since last Saturday. Vrabel said he’s very confident the Titans have followed the contact tracing protocol to identify anyone at risk from being close together.

“So we’ll see what happens tomorrow when we get those results back,” Vrabel said.

The NFL decided to postpone the game “to ensure the health and safety of players, coaches and game day personnel.” The league also said the Titans cannot have any in-person activities until further notice with the facility remaining closed.

Vrabel said the Titans also likely will have some new protocols to follow once they get back into the building. He did not elaborate.

Now the NFL has to figure out how to reschedule a game between two of its seven undefeated teams after the league’s first COVID-19 outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.

Both Vrabel and Pittsburgh coach Mike Tomlin said they had an idea of what the new date could be. For now both the Titans and Steelers went from game preparation to an unexpected bye and a chance to heal up some players. FOURNETTE (A N K L E) DOESN’T PRACTICE, LIKELY OUT FOR WEEK 4 >> Tampa Bay running back Leonard Fournette missed practice again Thursday, and coach Bruce Arians is not optimistic about his chances of playing Sunday. Arians told SiriusXMNFL on Wednesday night that he’s not hopeful of having Fournette when the Bucs host the Los Angeles Chargers.