Ravens’ COVID-19 outbreak illustrates vulnerability of even NFL’S best-prepared teams to pandemic
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, 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 plexiglass 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, and then to Tuesday night, and then to Wednesday.
Even if the Ravens’ outbreak is contained by the time they have to leave for Pittsburgh, there is no guarantee the game would be held. 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 NFL’S bestprepared 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% 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.