Chiefs, NFL overcome COVID-19 obstacles during regular season, set sights on postseason
The NFL’s decision to go forward with the 2020 regular season during a pandemic raised some cynical eyebrows last offseason.
The skepticism wasn’t unfounded. To date, the COVID-19 pandemic has claimed more than 370,000 lives in the U.S. alone.
But with 256 regular-season games and the first round of the postseason in the books, the league seems to have delivered on its mission of serving up a highly desired product while implementing and maintaining critical safety protocols.
Chiefs coach Andy Reid credits NFL commissioner Roger Goodell for the success of that balancing act.
“He could get commissioner of the year by having to juggle all that the way he did, if they have that award,” Reid said. “He just did a nice job of working through that and still uniting people even with some restrictions that you put on people.
“That’s not easy to navigate through and still not allowing ownership to not completely lose their income, nor the players to lose their income. There are just a lot of legs to this thing and I think he was able to bring that together.”
Safety measures enacted, including the mandatory wearing of masks by players and personnel not engaged in physical activity, contact tracing and social-distancing guidelines inside team facilities, all appear to have played a part in staving off widespread disruption of the season.
A tiered system further ensured that coaching staffs, players and essential team personnel, all of whom were placed in the league’s “Tier 1,” were kept separate from lower-tier staff inside training facilities, on practice fields and at stadiums.
In KC, it helped that Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes led by example.
“I was very adamant,” he said emphatically on wearing a mask. “I was big on it, and especially with the protocols, the COVID tracing and the contact tracing and everything like that.
“You want to make sure you’re really in a right way so that if you do have someone that tests positive for whatever reason, you’re not taking out the entire team.”
Outside of wearing facial coverings, frequent testing became a first line of defense starting in August 2020. From Aug. 1, 2020 through Jan. 2, 2021, the NFL administered 922,220 tests to players and personnel around the league. In that span, 256 players and 432 other personnel were reported to have tested positive league-wide, a .07 positivity percentage rate, according to the NFL.
Individuals who tested positive for COVID-19 were immediately isolated and prohibited from accessing team facilities or having direct contact with fellow players or other personnel until they cleared protocols. Contact tracing also began immediately around anyone confirmed to have tested positive.
The system worked, for the most part.
“It’s been pretty impressive to watch from afar,” Reid said. “A close seat, but afar. I’m not sitting in New York, where they have to deal with all this.”
Former Los Angeles Chargers coach Anthony Lynn agreed.
“We spent a lot of time with the league this offseason putting these protocols in place,” Lynn said. “It was the best game plan we could come up with and the only chance we had to get through the season. I think overall we’ve done an outstanding job, when you sit back and look at it.”
STAYING FLEXIBLE? ESSENTIAL
The 2020 season wasn’t all smooth sailing even as teams stayed vigilant. The coronavirus situation remained fluid.
It started in July, when players were given the option of playing or sitting out the season because of the pandemic. Chiefs right guard Laurent Duvernay-Tardif, who holds a medical degree, running back Damien Williams and rookie offensive lineman Lucas Niang elect to not play. Duvernay-Tardif, in fact, became the first player in the league to opt out.
The normal offseason, which typically includes “organized team activities” and a three-day mandatory minicamp, was replaced with an abbreviated training camp and no preseason games. The NFL also adjusted its roster rules by expanding teams’ practice squads from 10 players to 16, and implemented a three-week injured reserve, which provided flexibility for each team’s active 53-player roster.
During the regular season, positive tests affected multiple teams, including the Tennessee Titans, Denver Broncos, Atlanta Falcons, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Miami Dolphins, San Francisco 49ers, New England Patriots and Baltimore Ravens.
Some games were rescheduled, among them the Chiefs-Patriots matchup in Week 4 (moved from Sunday to Monday). The Broncos even entered a contest against the New Orleans Saints without a quarterback on their game-day roster — they were forced to use a practice-squad receiver as their starting QB.
The Chiefs experienced their own share of problems. Ten players and two staffers, including strength and conditioning coach Barry Rubin and vice president of sports and performance Rick Burkholder, are known to have been affected by COVID-19. Of note, Burkholder also serves as the Chiefs’ infectious control officer.
Linebacker Anthony Hitchens, wide receiver Mecole Hardman, fullback Anthony Sherman, defensive tackle Chris Jones, right tackle Mitchell Schwartz, left tackle Eric Fisher, offensive lineman Martinas Rankin, rookie defensive end Mike Danna, former practice squad quarterback Jordan Ta’amu and defensive tackle Braxton Hoyett all landed on the NFL’s reserve/COVID-19 list at some point in 2020.
There’s an important distinction to consider here, however, because a player’s inclusion on the list didn’t necessarily mean he’d tested positive. Instead, the player might’ve been considered a high-risk contact after being exposed.
Bottom line, COVID made for some missed time on the Chiefs’ roster.
Hitchens didn’t play in the final two games of the regular season, while Sherman missed three games before returning. Both players were considered high-risk contacts, a scenario that required mandatory five-day isolation and daily testing before either could be cleared.
“If you didn’t know there were sudden changes in football, you surely knew there were going to be potential changes with COVID,” Reid said. “Here today, gone tomorrow, as far as being able to participate, so we stayed flexible with it.
“We didn’t lose our mind if somebody couldn’t practice or couldn’t play. The next guy up was important: trust the different people.”
Raheem Morris, who served as the Falcons’ interim head coach in the second half of the 2020 season, said it was important for head coaches to be leaders.
“You’ve got to kind of move through it all and deal with crisis management all across the situation and how you deal with it,” Morris said. “Going through every day, whether it’s a COVID issue or an issue of not being able to practice or a meeting situation, on how you want to do it and what’s going to happen to keep us all safe.”
‘CAN ONLY DO SO MUCH ON ZOOM’
The pandemic altered how coaches and players conducted their off-field business, too.
Players weren’t allowed to train together at non-team facilities during the offseason, for instance. And game-day routines changed.
“It’s always as little as, like, getting a haircut before a game,” Mahomes said. “I had to get my barber tested or go to the barber shop when no one is there. ... (Y)ou can’t risk getting COVID or anything like that.
“And then, after games when I would usually hang out with the guys, hang out with different people, or even hang out with my family, I had to kind of prevent that as much as possible or keep it very minimal. I mean, it does take a toll on you.”
Chiefs safety Tyrann Mathieu agreed.
“Obviously, it was a mental battle trying to go through a whole football season, trying to stay focused on the game, trying to stay focused on your team, when the whole world seemed like it was in chaos,” he said. “There were so many different things going on that’s affecting real people. We just kind of tried to put our blinders on in a sense that we’ve got a job to do.”
Virtual meetings became the norm. Zoom calls replaced in-person gatherings, and the NFL implemented a stricter policy in November that allowed only members of coaching staffs to be in teams’ training facilities on Mondays and Tuesdays. Even then, those coaches were required to remain inside their offices.
Conducting meetings online presented its own challenges.
“The whole virtual thing is obviously a new experience, I think, for all of us,” Reid said. “Starting in the offseason, we kind of worked through some of the glitches that you might have with those and showing tape, and then just generally making sure everybody can get on the thing so they’d be there on time and working with you.”
Lynn, the former Chargers coach, echoed Reid’s assessment.
“I’m a relational guy, and I like to communicate with my guys on a personal level, and that just wasn’t possible this year,” he said. “You can only do so much through Zoom. I think every coach will tell you that they miss that contact, those personnel meetings and just those conversations that you normally would have with the players, the staff.”
The inconveniences the Chiefs and other NFL teams dealt with in order to get through the season paled in comparison to the implications inherent if safety measures weren’t followed.
“This is something you had to take seriously,” Lynn said. “We’re talking about, in some cases, life or death.”
EVEN MEDIA AFFECTED
During training camps across the league, members of the media went through daily testing alongside teams’ coaching staffs, players and other personnel.
COVID-19 affected locker room access during the week and after games. All news conferences were done via Zoom. Reporters were allowed to cover practices only if they remained inside marked “boxes” separated by six feet, and game-day attendance included routine temperature checks. Press boxes, usually full of reporters on game days, were kept sparse.
Reporters signed a “COVID-19 Arbitration and Release and Waiver of Liability Agreement” before being granted access. The signed copy was intended to preclude a member of the media or her/her family from suing the league or team if attendance at a team event or game resulted in sickness or death.
Max Becherer is an experienced photojournalist based in New Orleans and covers Saints games. But before his current post as a photo editor with The Times-Picayune/The Advocate, he spent more than a decade documenting armed conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan for various publications, including The New York Times Magazine, Newsweek and Rolling Stone.
That the NFL would require an experienced combat photographer to sign a COVID-19 waiver agreement in order to cover a game surprised him.
“I thought, ‘Here we go again,’” said Becherer, whose work capturing combat images in Afghanistan was used as evidence in a high-profile war crimes case in 2010. “To embed with the U.S. military, you sign a ‘hold harmless’ agreement that says you acknowledge that you are volunteering to be in a hostile environment and agree to waive any liability that the U.S. government might have in the case of bodily harm or death.
“An NFL game does not take place in a war zone, but increasingly the seriousness of the repercussions of what could happen to you both health-wise and legally are becoming more similar.”
Becherer signed the NFL’s document, albeit with reservations and only after double-checking the provisions of his own life and health insurance.
“As a journalist signing the (military) wavier, you had to make sure you had special insurance that covered you in a war zone, because regular insurance has a clause that waives coverage in a conflict zone,” he said. “Signing the NFL waiver protects the NFL. ... What happens to you needs to be carefully considered.”
‘IT’S NOT DONE YET’
For teams remaining in the playoffs, the mood entering Divisional Round Weekend is one of optimism. But cautious optimism.
The Browns, Sunday’s opponent for the Chiefs, have encountered COVID problems recently. They scored a first-round win over the Pittsburgh Steelers Sunday night without the presence of their head coach, Kevin Stefanski, who was isolated after testing positive in the days leading up to the game.
Stefanski’s case highlighted again the fragile nature of the league’s COVID reality on the road to Super Bowl LV, which is scheduled for Feb. 7 in Tampa.
Getting there — and playing the game — will require teams to continue adhering to strict protocols. Especially with cases surging to new heights around the country, and vaccine roll-out proceeding relatively slowly.
“It’s not done,” Reid said, “so we’ve got to keep going.”
And remain vigilant.
“I would probably say if you asked me if we were going to get through the whole season, I probably would’ve kind of shrugged my shoulders,” Mathieu said. “I didn’t really know.
“To see the league really be able to finish this thing through ... it’s going to be very important for teams to get through the playoffs and not be affected by it. But hats off to everybody.”
Mahomes agreed.
“I’m definitely very proud of not only the league and the protocols they set in place, but the players,” the Chiefs quarterback said. “Guys had to really take a sacrifice this year, and I thought the players did a good job of that.
“There were a few instances here and there where guys slipped up, but for the most part guys really took it upon themselves to handle their business the right way.”
