While fans around the country happily welcomed the first full week of college football this season, there is a ton of nervousness going around the National Football League.
ESPN’s Chris Mortensen said he spoke with multiple head coaches and front-office executives “who are nervous about COVID-19 testing today with the number of players who visited their former college teams’ opening games (and social gatherings) this past weekend.”
The NFL and NFL Players Association laid out their new COVID-19 protocols ahead of the regular season. With weekly testing, it’s possible that the virus will be in and out of the symptoms of the vaccinated players before their next weekly test.
A positive test puts a vaccinated player’s availability in doubt for Week One, since a pair of negative outcomes at least 24 hours apart would be needed to clear the player to play.
The chance remains that one or more players are in jeopardy of missing Week 1 after having traveled to attend the opening slate of college football games.
