Steelers will play in day; 49ers on move
After a weekend of question marks and patchwork solutions, the NFL was forced to juggle its schedule yet again Monday as it tries to finish the full regular season on time amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The league moved the Pittsburgh Steelers’ game against the Baltimore Ravens to Wednesday at 3:40 p.m. Eastern, rescheduling the AFC North matchup for the third time in six days. Like the previous moves, the postponement was meant to give the Ravens, who have had more than 20 players, including the NFL’s reigning MVP, quarterback Lamar Jackson, test positive for the coronavirus, more time to get them cleared to return.
By the game’s start Wednesday afternoon, 12 Ravens players will still be ineligible to play, but the team should be able to hold two practices before meeting the Steelers.
To accommodate the schedule change, the NFL pushed back the Ravens’ next matchup against the Dallas Cowboys, originally scheduled for Thursday, to Dec. 8. The Steelers’ Week 13 game against the Washington Football Team was pushed back one day to Dec. 7 at 5 p.m.
Wednesday games are exceedingly rare. The last one played was in 2012, when the New York Giants and Dallas Cowboys moved their game to a Wednesday night to avoid overlapping with Barack Obama’s speech at the Democratic National Convention. That had been the first regular-season game on a Wednesday since the Los Angeles Rams’ victory against the Detroit Lions in 1948.
Meanwhile, the San Francisco 49ers are taking their ball and going to a new home in Arizona.
State Farm Stadium in Glendale will host the 49ers’ next two games because of Santa Clara County’s health directive banning contact sports over at least the next three weeks amid a COVID-19 surge.
The 49ers, on the Arizona Cardinals’ field, will play Monday night against the Buffalo Bills and then vs. Washington on Dec. 13.
The 49ers (5-6) have yet to announce where they will move their practices and, essentially, their entire operations with the potential of not returning to their Santa Clara facility the rest of the season.
ELSEWHERE
Colts: Indianapolis punter Rigoberto Sanchez says he will have surgery to have a cancerous tumor removed. Sanchez made the announcement Monday in an Instagram post. He did not provide details about the diagnosis or how much time he might miss, only that doctors found the cancer before it spread.
Giants: New York does not think quarterback Daniel Jones’ right hamstring injury is season-ending, sources said. While that’s encouraging, the team was still waiting on definitive MRI results, and will have to see if Jones is able to do anything later this week to evaluate him for Sunday’s game at Seattle.
Panthers: Carolina
● coach Matt Rhule said wide receiver DJ Moore injured his ankle in Sunday’s loss to the Vikings, but X-rays showed it was not a break as originally feared.