No NFL players dealing with serious heart ailment associated with COVID-19

No NFL player who has had COVID -19 has been diagnosed with myocarditis, a league source says.

The heart disease causes potentially life-threatening inflammation of heart tissue.

It was diagnosed in 10 or more football players at Big Ten universities, according to The Athletic and other national U.S. sports news outlets earlier this month.

Reports at that time cited a deep concern about myocarditis as a principal medical reason the Big Ten — one of the foremost U.S. college sports conferences — cancelled all fall sports.

Just on Friday, however, multiple reports said the Big Ten was seriously reconsidering that decision, at least for football. Leaders were said to be mulling a 2020-21 football season for winter instead of fall, beginning as early as late November.

The NFL’S chief medical officer, Dr. Allen Sills, told reporters on a conference call earlier this month that all league players who contract COVID-19 are being thoroughly tested for potential serious post-coronavirus ailments or complications, such as myocarditis.

A league source on Friday told Postmedia that no player who has had COVID -19 since has been found to have myocarditis.

And how many NFL players have had the pandemic-causing virus?

Well, the NFL Players Association says on its website that 107 players (of the more than 2,800 on off-season rosters) tested positive in the spring or early summer. And from the time players began reporting for training camps in late July, through Aug. 12, player positives numbered 64, NFLPA.COM says.

On Monday of this week the NFL announced that since that very day, Aug. 12, there have been zero confirmed positive tests among players.

So, in all this year, that adds up to 171 out of 2,800-plus NFL players who have had COVID-19. And not one has been left with a heart issue.

Are the reports about Big Ten myocarditis cases to be believed without league confirmation? The reporters are solid pros. The information each obtained, or was provided, is what still raises eyebrows.

Let’s do some brief speculative math.

There could be as many as 140 Big Ten football players, including bottom roster walk-ons, on the 14 university teams. That’s somewhere approaching 2,000.

If it’s true that 10 or more have had the disease that causes heart inflammation, when practically no other college football conference or pro sports league is reporting any such cases, well, that would be one mighty concerning outlier indeed.