Jaguars to Operate Under NFL's "Intensive COVID-19 Protocols" Through Friday
The Jacksonville Jaguars will be operating in the NFL's “intensive protocol" this week as part of the league's COVID-19 safety standards, with the Jaguars announcing the protocol that will be in place through Friday.
This comes after the Jaguars placed 13 players—12 of which were on the practice squad—onto the COVID-19 list on Saturday.
The expansive list was a result of one player on the Jaguars practice squad returning a confirmed positive test, which the Jaguars announced on Saturday morning. The remainder of the practice squad was then placed on the list as well due to contact tracing, along with defensive end Josh Mauro. The full list of those placed on the Reserve—Practice Squad/COVID-19 list can be found at the bottom of the page.*
Following the results, the Jags were required to move into the intensive protocol. The Jaguars said on Monday that "through this morning's round of testing, the team has only received one positive test since Friday."
With the intensive protocols comes carries a variety of updates the club announced, with all information listed below. Some, like wearing masks, tracers and abiding by social distancing, and other things were already being done.
- For the practice squad players that were added to the COVID-19 list due to contact tracing, they can return to Jacksonville's facility on Thursday as long as they continue to produce negative results.
- All player meetings will be held virtually.
- Both the weight room and locker room will have capacity limits at all times.
- Player activity inside facility will include meals, lifting, medical and rehab and practice.
- Practice or walkthrough is allowed on practice field or in the flex field.
- Daily PCR tests will continue to be required for all players. All players, coaches and Tier 1 and Tier 2 staff members must produce negative results from the previous day before they are permitted in facility.
- Masks and Kinexon contact tracers must continue to be worn at all times while at the facility.
This does create a possible issue when it comes to practicing, with the practice squad players unable to return before Thursday. The Jaguars use Monday for film and are off on Tuesday. On Wednesday, head coach Doug Marrone says they’ll see the most glaring practice changes, albeit even then those are changes he feels can be minimized.
“My thought process is, you know, go through—we’ll kind of split practice up a little bit meaning where, you know, we're going to be able to get work done like we'd normally, like a normal Wednesday. And there'll be a time when it comes down to the team periods to kind of back off, because if not then we'd have our team servicing each other.
“I just want to make sure that we're fresh and we're ready to go and then Thursday, it'll be a normal practice, Friday a normal practice. So I think the day that we'll have a practice adjustment is obviously [Wednesday], the day we're missing those players.”
This week was originally set to be a bye week for Jacksonville but given a fluctuating NFL schedule due to COVID-19 adjustments in other clubs, the Week 8 game vs. the Los Angeles Chargers was moved up to this week. The Jaguars will now have a bye on November 1.
The following players were added to Jacksonville's reserve/COVID-19 list on Saturday.
- RB Nathan Cottrell
- TE Ben Ellefson
- LB Nate Evans
- LB Joe Giles-Harris
- WR Terry Godwin
- WR Josh Hammond
- OT Jared Hilber
- OL KC McDermott
- DB Doug Middleton
- DB Josh Nurse
- OT Austen Pleasants
- WR Trey Quinn
- DL Josh Mauro
The Reserve/COVID-19 list is a new reserve category created by the NFL this season for a player who either tests positive for COVID-19 or who has been quarantined after having been in close contact with an infected person or persons, thus a player being on the list does not mean they have tested positive for COVID-19.
