RBs coach has COVID; Barkley among other initial positives
The Giants are staring down a potential coronavirus outbreak, as the team said 13 tests came back positive on Tuesday when the team returned from Kansas City.
Running backs coach Burton Burns was positive again on Wednesday, but Joe Judge said the other 12 were negative in a round of retesting.
“The first thing he said to me is he was apologetic,” Judge said of Burns. “He doesn’t go anywhere. Burton goes from his apartment to here. He gets on the team plane and he goes to the hotel and he doesn’t leave when he gets to the hotel, so he’s only been places with the team. As I told Burton, I said the one thing about this whole deal is you don’t have to go somewhere to get it, it can come to you.”
A new batch of players tested positive on Wednesday, Judge said. Among them former Whitehall High star Saquon Barkley, according to the NFL Network. Barkley is vaccinated and currently dealing with an ankle injury. Vaccinated players can return to play with no symptoms and two negative tests in 24 hours, although it was unclear if Barkley was going to play against the Raiders Sunday anyway.
Barkley was among a group of players who were positive on rapid tests Wednesday and were awaiting PCR results. Offensive lineman Matt Skura and safety Xavier McKinney also missed Wednesday’s practice; the Giants say all three are in COVID protocols.
Practice was delayed Wednesday as players, coaches and staff lined up to get tested outside.
“It’s nothing new. We wear tracers every day, get COVID tested, so stuff like this comes up,” safety Logan Ryan said. “Obviously, results have got to come back. I’m not going to speak too much on it, but we obviously had experience with this last season. It’s been a different type of football these last couple of years.” Ryan is vaccinated and has spoken strongly in favor of vaccines this year.
The Giants “do not have many” unvaccinated players, Judge said Wednesday. Judge, like the vast majority of NFL coaches, is vaccinated.
“We’ve been in masks all day,” he said Wednesday. “We’ve been spaced out. That’s really our norm here as far as the spacing. The masks are new to everybody back in the building for this year, except for the unvaccinated players.”
Burns is 69 years old and isolating away from the team. Other than Burton, Judge said the situation was unclear.
“That is all still to be determined,” Judge said. “They are going through all the tests, which takes about a day of going through the trainers, close contacts and tracers and all that stuff. In terms of any answers as far as Sunday or even something that will lead into practice, we don’t have any definite answers, except for really Burton, right now.”