Fear The Chorizo

They also authorized signing players off the street much more easily to get through roster shortages due to COVID - they'll be fine since the worst part of these outbreaks for them is middle of the regular season when nobody cares about game results. The NFL is in a tougher spot because this will run through the start of their playoffs and each game has so much more importance on the schedule.

The other reason why MVS may have been tested is each week apparently a random grouping of vaccinated players are still tested even if they are asymptomatic...if he was in this week's random grouping he would have a better shot at playing Saturday because he probably was asymptomatic to begin with. Otherwise he is probably out because it seems like even vaxxed players take a week+ to test negative if they wind up having mild symptomatic infections

Doubtful, actually - at least in terms of getting a huge # of players added to the COVID list after the adjustments NFL made to their testing protocol starting this league week. If a player or coach/staff is vaccinated, he now only needs to take a test if he's showing symptoms. There will be players added to the COVID lists leaguewide weekly from here on out, but it won't be 40% of the roster in the span of a few days. Almost all of the cases in the outbreak identified last week in the NFL were either asymptomatic or showing such limited symptoms that they would have otherwise been cleared to practice if not for testing positive for COVID. Had the current NFL COVID testing policies been in place at the start of the previous league week, none of the 3 games pushed to Monday/Tuesday would've needed to be pushed, because a vast majority of the players on the Browns, WFT, and Rams wouldn't have ever been placed on the COVID list because they were vaccinated and asymptomatic (i.e., wouldn't have needed to even test). Obviously, unvaccinated players who hadn't already tested positive and been given the 90 day window free from testing (aka Rodgers' current situation until late January from what I recall) are still subject to daily COVID testing - at this point of the season I'd imagine the number of unvaccinated players who haven't already gotten COVID in the league is maybe a handful. Unless this Omicron variant starts causing obvious symptoms with a much higher frequency than what it's recently been doing among vaccinated players and coaches across the league, there won't be any more teamwide outbreaks that lead to rescheduled games or a stoppage of the league schedule by the NFL.

Generally agree with all of this...I'd hate to add more time to games with reviews, but honestly I think one way to try and correct some of these bad calls that tend to either prolong drives or reverse game-changing turnovers/big plays is to give each sideline the option to challenge some of these 15 yard low hit/defenseless receiver/unsportsmanlike penalty calls. Give a rules official in the box the opportunity to watch a hit or play in slow motion to see if the contact that resulted in a flag in real time actually was against the rules. This would be 1 challenge per game, with the opportunity to keep that challenge provided a coach is right and a call gets reversed. Multiple defensive penalties called on the Bears last night were simply not penalties that this type of booth review would quickly overturn - and those calls on the field directly resulted in extending the scarce Viking drives that actually led to points on the board.

Of all the teams muddled in that 7-7 record area in the NFC, the Vikings have the most difficult remaining schedule with having both the Rams and Packers left on their schedule. They might find a way in going 1-2, but odds are they will need to go 2-1 and even that may not be enough depending on how Washington finishes. I think the only reason the Vikings have the tiebreaker over the Saints is win % in NFC games - which they will likely give up with the Saints playing Carolina and ATL yet. Plus I think WFT moves back in front of the Vikings if they beat the Eagles tonight. If the Vikings lose to the Rams this coming weekend, then everything probably sets up for that Sunday night game at Lambeau to be the dagger loss that kills their season and potentially results in a house cleaning - in a perfect world that includes dumping Paul Allen and all his schtick so I don't have to listen to him around here anymore, but one can only be so lucky.

I thought the refs in last night's bears-vikes game were as awful and inconsistent as the teams playing, and that led to things being more chippy than they otherwise would have been. They made some bad unnecessary roughness calls against the Bears that gifted the Vikings the game even with the bears' offense imploding whenever they got inside the 20. Anyone know if Thielen is close to getting back on the field? If not I don't see how the Vikings win 2 of their last 3 games and have a shot at a playoff spot - their oline is a mess and defenses can roll coverage to keep Jefferson in check if Cousins doesn't have a ton of time to find him downfield.

Yet somehow it's been highly entertaining just watching the trainwreck unfold in a way for both sidelines - I can totally see the Bears going into MN week 18 and ruining the Vikings season if they still have a postseason chance...thinking the vikes are going to have tough sledding the next few weeks though. Nagy and Pace have to be canned at the end of this season, right?

Not really, but I'd like to see the vikes still with a shot at the postseason when they play the Packers at lambeau, just to enjoy GB knocking them out of it themselves.

Huge, huge loss for the Bucs. He had evolved into Brady's 1A and 1B. The Artist formerly known as Mike Evans is made of paper mache at this point in his career, and as we saw last night, the rest of that WR corp leaves much to be desired. It's no wonder they are now ready to welcome Antonio Brown back with open arms. Dude is about to be peppered with 18 targets/game. Brady absolutely laid Godwin out to dry on that play. There was nothing the defender could do. Hit him high ... penalty. Hit him low ... blown ACL. Just a terrible pass that put Godwin in a no-win position. Was coming on here to post just this....early reports were just an MCL sprain that Godwin may have been able to get back for the playoffs (which I thought was a huge stroke of luck considering he's lucky to have any ligaments left in that knee after that hit), but this is a big blow to how Tampa plays offense. And yeah, Tom terrific led him right into trouble.

It's the same turnaround as any team that has a Thursday game on their schedule after playing Sunday. I mean, yeah, the players hate the Thursday games, but they are mainstream now. True, but they've already played one Thursday game, which was the nfl's justification for adding that night to the schedule....I guess at least they had their bye week late on their schedule(week 13), and they'll get a slight breather after the Christmas game because their next week is a Monday night game. Still sucks - by pushing them to just Monday they are still going to be without ~22 players, including their top 2 qbs. So this move really didn't help Cleveland at all in terms of getting guys back.

With the change in the NFL's COVID testing policy that now stops a need for testing asymptomatic vaccinated players and coaches, yes the Christmas Packers-Browns game probably doesn't get moved. IMO it probably should be since they're forcing a still shorthanded Browns team to play tonight and then play after just 4 days rest this late in the year, but I can't say I'm disappointed in that development as a Packer fan, either.

Definitely agreed on Henry before he got injured - Titans would've been the runaway best team in the AFC if they had him to lean on. Such is life in the NFL as a workhorse running back, though.

For MVP I think Rodgers gets it if they get the bye but of course needs a good statistical finish as well. It will be close though and maybe the COVID thing loses him some votes. Wasn't that supposed to be one of the disqualifiers with Burnes for Cy Young, too? I think if Rodgers goes off the next couple weeks and winds up at least having to start the final game to get 16 games worth of stats, and they wind up getting the top NFC seed for the playoffs, he should repeat as MVP and it really isn't a discussion. Specific to the MVP discussion, I think he's still a dark horse candidate but Herbert would be even more deserving had the Chargers won a couple more games they should have - he is having a really great year both throwing and running the ball. Not that a WR would win this season, but Kupp, Davante, and Jefferson are having WR years that should warrant some MVP votes as well - particularly if one of them blows up the last few weeks.

Brady is relegated to PI hunting right now...

Saints have owned TB in the regular season with Brady....looking like they will be soon 4-0. The blueprint is pretty much have Godwin, Evans, and Fournette leave injured, have Antonio brown forge a covid card, and have a front 4 wreak havoc all night. Saints were shutting Brady and company down early this game before all those guys got hurt, but they would be losing right now if not for those issues. Saints' offense is a nonfactor, too.

Lots of buccaneer skill position talent getting injured tonight...will be interesting if any miss significant time.

17-bagel now

There's going to be at least one attempt at a fake fg or punt by the Ravens today along with returns on just about any kick they can run back. Harbaugh is a former special teams coordinator and the only way they win today's game is if they find ways for us to spend half the game thread lamenting how awful packer special teams are again.

...meaning the Browns will play the Packers coming off 4 days rest / recovery on Christmas Day. I mentioned to one of my co-workers over lunch that the Browns could very well have a different set of players out for that game, assuming we're talking about the new & high transmissibility COVID variant. There will be 3-5 different NFL teams next week in the same situation the Browns currently find themselves in - Packers could just as easily be one of them. Posted in the Packers-specific thread that I think there's a decent chance that Packers/Browns game get pushed back a day just to give Cleveland an extra day between games for rest and travel (not to mention followup COVID testing), too.

Wouldn't surprise me in the least for that Browns-Packers game to get bumped back 1-2 days just to give the Browns an extra day and closer to a normal week - frankly it would also give postgame COVID testing after Monday's Browns/Raiders game a chance to actually find any new cases prior them traveling to Green Bay for a saturday game, too. The league would end up moving a different game to that Christmas afternoon slot, because TV $$$.

technically true, but if the Chargers opted to kick a few FGs early in that game instead of going for it that was an L last night. Mahomes had a very uneven game but made some big plays at the end with the help of a tired Chargers' defense that ran some ill-advised man coverage behind a gassed pass rush. Joey Bosa had a brutal game last night - seems like whenever he was on the field the only thing he did was leave his pass rush gap and allow Mahomes to get out of the pocket and buy time for Kelce and Hill to run free for a big play. KC's defense has been playing really well after they looked like hot garbage to start the year, so they at least don't have to score 40 to win a game...they are probably going to be the team to beat in the AFC again this postseason, but to me that entire conference is full of decent teams but there are 2-3 NFC teams better than all of them.

Sounds like Billy Turner's knee injury isn't definitively ending his season....which is really good news. Hurry back Bakh and Myers!

This is to be expected. If a team is 100% vaccinated for example, then 100% of cases will be vaccinated players and staff Yep - but for some reason the NFL didn't consider the possibility of a large number of COVID cases among vaccinated personnel impacting the league schedule in its protocols if the focus remains monitoring positive tests/case counts. When they came up with this policy in the early summer it was in the timeframe when COVID rates were seasonally plummeting regardless of how many people were vaccinated across the country, and well before any concerns of waning efficacy over time were going to surface - IMO it was blind optimism on their part assuming as long as most of their players and all coaches got the shots by the start of the 2021 training camp that there wouldn't be the same issues they had in late fall 2020. The current league-wide case outbreak is far worse than anything they saw during the 2020 season that led to multiple scheduling delays for games. Up to this point they've been able to avoid pushing games back this season and screwing with ticket/gameday revenues of sold-out stadiums, but their luck may be running out - particularly now that we're past the point of the schedule where teams have bye weeks. I'll add the fact that if well over 90% of the league and all staff/coaches are indeed fully vaccinated, that's great - at some point then the protocols need to be adjusted for COVID across the league to focus more on keeping symptomatic illness out of team facilities and off the field (similar to how teams addressed seasonal flu or other symptomatic viral outbreaks prior to 2020 without chasing down whether players had gotten their flu shot or not), or we are stuck in this cycle indefinitely. From what I'm reading most all of these recent cases among vaccinated personnel are either entirely asymptomatic or with extremely minor symptoms where they feel kind of off for a day or two and then are fine - which has always been the point and value of getting this vaccine. It's time to stop thinking getting jabbed at appropriate intervals means you won't ever get COVID or that vaccinated people getting infected at some point means the vaccine isn't effective - I just hate the term "breakthrough infection" when it comes to this. If striving to limit COVID infections remains the goal, then the NFLPA has it right in terms of wanting daily testing for EVERYONE inside the team facility, regardless of vaccination status. https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/32876158/nflpa-again-pushes-nfl-reinstitute-daily-testing-covid-19

Add Mayfield and a couple coaches, including Stefanski, to the Browns' COVID reserve list - which now includes roughly 20% of their typical gameday roster. Stefanski is an interesting case because he missed last year's playoff game against the Steelers after testing positive, then got fully vaccinated, then got boosted, and then got COVID again. Biggest scheduling problem the NFL has heading down the stretch is its protocols for this season were set up to have the ability to decree forfeitures and fines for teams if COVID case outbreaks could be readily traced back to unvaccinated players or breaches in mitigation measures inside team facilities in effort to avoid having to reschedule games late in the year after bye weeks leave the schedule....but these current teamwide outbreaks are largely occurring across vaccinated staff and players and they are chasing testing results because those people are not tested daily until it's frankly too late to limit close contacts and spread. It's apparent that both the Browns and Rams played their last game with players who likely had asymptomatic COVID over the weekend but didn't start getting test results back until 1-3 days after their games Sunday/Monday night. It hasn't gotten to the same level as some teams in the NBA or NHL, who are close to the point of having to pull anyone off the street and give them a jersey provided they test negative to get through some of their games while half or more of their regular roster is out due to COVID infections, but it's tougher to deal with in the NFL since there are fewer regular season games that carry far more value for playoff positioning than leagues like the NBA and NHL. I think the NFL would be wise to adjust its playoff schedule by giving all playoff teams a week off before the postseason starts and get those rosters as COVID-free as possible. Just push all the rounds back a week except the Super Bowl and don't play the Pro Bowl - there'd just be 1 week off between the conference championship games and Super Bowl, but that's probably for the best anyways.

That’s possible, but there is far less travel in the NFL vs. the NBA and NHL. Their ‘bubble’ may be tighter. In the NFL, teams travel once every two weeks. In the NBA and NHL, travel is constant. Their "bubble" includes around 90 people between players, coaches, and staff - and that doesn't even factor in family/friends they live with. Travel has very limited influence on spreading COVID when COVID is everywhere and has been for well over a year. NBA and to a lesser extent NHL teams have far fewer players/coaches to worry about, and I'd argue their more frequent travel schedule actually helps them isolate within their own pods a bit better if they so choose because they don't have as much daily interactions at home/in their home city for the full week between every game that NFL personnel do. Not that it really makes any difference at the moment - they're all dealing with increasing COVID issues.