This is the time that everyone should be in full training mode – running drills with full pads, fine-tuning their offenses and defenses and even participating in preseason games. The NFL regular season is set to get underway in 17 days, but events over this past weekend are forcing many teams to scramble. Several had to call off practices completely over sudden surges in positive coronavirus tests, and any outbreak now would be devastating to the NFL’s plans to start on time. However, football fans – as well as the league – are breathing a sigh of relief, as it appears the positive test results were nothing more than false positives, and they were all traced back to one particular lab in New Jersey.
The Minnesota Vikings had 12 false positives over the weekend, the New York Jets had ten and the Chicago Bears had nine. The Cleveland Browns also had some, and became the first team to cancel its practices. The Jets then followed on Saturday, but practiced on Sunday, and the Bears shifted their practice from the morning to the afternoon after they determined that the results were nothing more than false positives. The Vikings decided to bench those who had tested positive and keep them out of Sunday’s practice. Other teams impacted include the Buffalo Bills, the Detroit Lions, the Philadelphia Eagles and the Pittsburgh Steelers.
In trying to determine why there was a sudden spike in the number of positive cases, the NFL was able to trace the problem to a single lab in New Jersey operated by BioReference. The league issued a statement about the issue, explaining, “Saturday’s daily COVID testing returned several positives tests from each of the clubs serviced by the same laboratory in New Jersey. We are working with our testing partner, BioReference, to investigate these results, while the clubs work to confirm or rule out the positive tests. Clubs are taking immediate precautionary measures as outlined in the NFL-NFLPA’s health and safety protocols to include contact tracing, isolation of individuals and temporarily adjusting the schedule, where appropriate. The other laboratories used for NFL testing have not had similar results.”
That’s good news and bad news for the NFL. It’s great because it could mean that there won’t be any issues as the league looks to get going on September 10. However, it is still concerning, because there needs to be definitive proof of no widespread COVID-19 appearance for the season to kick off. It also could be a financial loss to the league if it has to pay for all the tests to be retaken, instead of the lab assuming that cost.