On Monday, NFL followers were up in arms that two players played on Sunday with COVID-19. Tests for the Baltimore Ravens’ Marlon Humphries and the Green Bay Packers’ A.J. Dillon came back positive on Monday.
But as ridiculous as that sounds, when you dig into how the heck this happened, you realize it’s because the NFL has enhanced its testing.
Before Week 6, players weren’t being tested on game day because it takes 24 hours to get the tests in. So they’d test Saturday, get the result on Sunday and not get tested again until Monday with the results coming in on Tuesday.
That changed when the NFL realized it left a gap, where a player could be around his team for two full days between Sunday and Monday while COVID positive.
So while the NFL looks incredibly dumb for putting both teams at risk on game day, the reality is it’s actually doing a better job at trying to contain the spread of COVID-19.