Dez Bryant Scratched From Cowboys-Ravens After Positive COVID-19 Test

Bryant was pulled to the side while warming up for the game to take a COVID-19 test. He tested positive.

Baltimore Ravens wide receiver Dez Bryant will not play in Tuesday night's game against his former team, the Dallas Cowboys after testing positive for COVID-19 minutes before kickoff.

Bryant's initial COVID-19 test on Tuesday morning came back inclusive. The test lab, located in Maryland, ran Bryant's lab tests again in which they came back inclusive. 

The wide receiver was given a point-of-care rapid test and he was pulled from the field in which he tested positive. 

NFL Network's Tom Pelissero reported that Baltimore—because the team is so close to the test lab—receives its test results the same day rather than overnight. With the game starting at 8:05 p.m ET, the retesting process played out to where Bryant was at the stadium before he was pulled off the field.

Once Bryant found out his positive COVID-19 test result, he began a series of tweets about his status of not playing in Tuesday's game against the Cowboys. 

Tell me why they pull me from warming up so I can go get tested... my shit come back positive... I tested positive for Covid WTF

— Dez Bryant (@DezBryant) December 9, 2020

"Yea I’m going to go ahead and call it a quit for the rest of the season, I can’t deal with this," Bryant said in a subsequent tweet.

"Since I tested positive for COVID-19 before the game do the game stop or go on?@NFL."

All other Baltimore players tested negative for COVID-19 and no high-risk close contacts were identified, according to Pelissero. 

One of the NFL's criteria for considering a player as a high-risk close contact is whether the player was exposed to the infected individual while not wearing a mask.

Whenever a player tests positive for COVID-19, the league conducts contact tracing and determines who qualifies as a high-risk close contact. If there are any Ravens who do, after Bryant's positive result, they would have to be pulled from this game. 

Baltimore signed Bryant to its practice squad on Oct. 27. Bryant, 32, has played in three games for the Ravens in 2020, recording four receptions for 28 yards. 

He spent eight years with the Cowboys before his release, which came after he refused to take a pay cut. Bryant played in his final Cowboys' season in 2017 where he caught 69 passes and six touchdowns.

Between Bryant's release by the Cowboys in 2018 to Nov. 1, he didn't play a regular-season game in the NFL. He was a free agent for seven months before signing a deal with New Orleans in November 2018. 

However, Bryant tore his Achilles tendon two days after signing with the Saints. In a FOX Sports interview with sports analyst Tony Gonzalez before Tuesday's game, Bryant admitted that "he was not ready to play the game" when he was signed by the Saints.

Bryant also said that during his time away from the game, he was battling depression and anxiety.

A year after his injury, in November 2019, he publicly stated his interest in returning to the league but no team signed him.

After his return to the league, however, Bryant was ready to show off a new sense of maturity to those around him.

"I'm ready to show the young guys what hard work looks like," Bryant said to Gonzalez.