Packers Are Healthy While COVID Rate Soars Across NFL

More players have tested positive the past three days than over the past four weeks combined.

GREEN BAY, Wis. – With the playoffs approaching and postseason berths and division championships about to be decided, the NFL is facing a COVID epidemic.

After relatively smooth sailing through training camps in August and the first three months of the season, 106 players have tested positive the past three days. That’s more than over the previous four weeks combined (87) and not far off the six-week total (121).

The Green Bay Packers, remarkably, have been in the clear. Backup quarterback Jordan Love was removed from the COVID-19 list on Wednesday, meaning the team officially is COVID-free.

Just how long that will last is anyone’s guess.

“We’ve fortunately been OK,” coach Matt LaFleur said before Wednesday’s practice. “No coaches or players but, again, you’ve got to take it day by day because it’s obvious it’s very problematic for a lot of teams out there.”

The Cleveland Browns, who are scheduled to play the Las Vegas Raiders on Saturday and the Green Bay Packers on Christmas Saturday, have 18 players on the COVID list, including quarterback Baker Mayfield. Browns coach Kevin Stefanski is out, as well. The Washington Football Team has 17 players on the COVID list and the Los Angeles Rams have 16.

While COVID vaccines have proven durable in terms of preventing serious illness and death, they have not fared as well in preventing infections. The vast majority of players, coaches and staff members are vaccinated. Many of this wave of infections are breakthrough cases in which the players are asymptomatic.

“Just out of breath going up the stairs but that’s every week. I had nothing, really, which was nice,” Packers tight ends coach Justin Outten, who is back after missing Sunday night’s win vs. Chicago, said on Thursday.

The NFL moved heaven and earth to get its complete schedule played last year. Commissioner Roger Goodell has said – and maintained on Wednesday – that games will not be postponed and that relaxed roster rules and larger practice squads should help gets teams through COVID-related troubles.

Still, with 94.6 percent of players and almost 100 percent of team personnel vaccinated, the clubs have done their part. If dozens of vaccinated players are going to test positive, is it fair to run a watered-down roster on the field for a big late-season game?

The league is going to push boosters – even those aren’t fool-proof, as Stefanski learned – which should help. The new Omicron variant is more transmissible but also far less dangerous than previous versions of COVID. The league could move unilaterally to intensive protocols, meaning the return of virtual meetings. With a milder virus and better therapeutics coming – Pfizer has a pill that was 89 percent effective at reducing the risk of hospitalization and death in high-risk adults – there’s a realization that it’s time to live with COVID long-term.

“What testing doesn't do is prevent transmission, and we've known that always," said the NFL's chief medical officer, Dr. Allen Sills. “That was true last year and it's still true today. As we look at how to respond, what we're trying to do is prevent spread within the facility and keep people from testing positive. Keeping people from testing positive takes us back to their immunity: getting the booster, getting their antibody levels up. Spread within the facility is more about these other measures. You have to rely on those other measures to make sure that we're not creating spread within our facilities.”

For LaFleur, who is coaching a 10-3 championship contender, every day suddenly brings peril. To some extent, there’s nothing he can do to prevent an outbreak. Winter weather means people spend more time indoors. School is in session. People have lives. As has become incredibly obvious the past few days, players – vaccinated or not – are going to get COVID.

If it happens, will there be enough healthy players or enough time to adjust?

“You can only control what you can control, and I don't think anybody’s controlling this, obviously,” LaFleur said. “I would say it’s similar to how you have to deal with injuries. You’ve just got to play the hand that you’re dealt and you have to learn to adjust and make the necessary changes.”