No Game This Week
NASHVILLE – The COVID count continues to rise.
The NFL announced Thursday that one more player and one staff member among the Tennessee Titans tested positive for the coronavirus.
As a result, the league has postponed this week’s game against the Pittsburgh Steelers indefinitely. The contest was scheduled for Sunday, but on Wednesday the NFL said it would delay it until Monday or Tuesday to allow additional time for testing and contact tracing and to allow the Titans ample preparation time.
As of now, five players and six staff members have tested positive within the last week.
“The Pittsburgh-Tennessee game scheduled for Week 4 will be rescheduled to later this season after one additional Titans player and one personnel member tested positive for COVID-19 today,” the NFL said Thursday. “An announcement of the new game date will be made shortly
“The decision to postpone the game was made to ensure the health and safety of players, coaches and game day personnel. The Titans facility will remain closed and the team will continue to have no in-person activities until further notice.”
Tennessee is the first NFL team to be hit with a COVID-19 outbreak and, subsequently, the first to force a change in the schedule.
The Titans’ bye is in Week 7, when Pittsburgh is scheduled to play Baltimore. The Steelers and Ravens both have their bye in Week 8. Theoretically, the Titans-Steelers matchup could be moved to Week 7 and the Pittsburgh-Baltimore matchup shifted back to Week 8. That would make this week a bye for Tennessee and Pittsburgh, and Baltimore’s bye would be a week earlier than scheduled (Week 7).
“Whenever the league says the game will take place, then we have to be ready to play as soon as we step on that field, no matter what kind of obstacles and circumstances we have to overcome along the way,” quarterback Ryan Tannehill said Wednesday. “… We have to be able to overcome adversity, it's just a different type of adversity. We've done it throughout this season so far a few weeks in, and showed our mental strength that we can find a way to win games and this is just another challenge along that road.”
The game against Pittsburgh was to be the Titans’ first with fans in the stands. The crowd at Nissan Stadium was to be limited to 10 percent of capacity.
Tennessee is also scheduled to play home games against Buffalo (Oct. 11) and Houston (Oct. 18) before its open date. No determination has been made about those contests.
“I feel comfortable that since receiving the protocols in August, we’ve followed those by the letter, and that we were conscious of everything that we did,” coach Mike Vrabel said Wednesday. “This is a very unfortunate situation, but one that we're confident that we will be able to handle safely with the football team and the players’ best interest in mind.”
