All NFL players and coaches involved in Sunday games passed tests for COVID-19 and “should be good to go,” pending a health check upon arrival at stadiums, NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport tweeted.
The news came days after The Washington Post published an op-ed penned by commissioner Roger Goodell and Dr. Allen Sills, the league’s chief medical officer, that discussed starting the season amid the coronavirus pandemic.
“We have worked with players, teams and medical experts to build a comprehensive game plan. Our hope is that transparency about our operations will contribute knowledge and insights that will aid the country’s pandemic response,” they wrote in the piece, which appeared Thursday before the NFL’s first game of the season.
Still, the acknowledged they don’t expect smooth sailing.
“We also know that effort alone cannot control the virus or its effects,” the op-ed read. “There will be speed bumps and perhaps detours along the way. The NFL is not any more immune to the virus than are our colleagues in other sports or the rest of society. This will be hard. But just as the league survived a pandemic challenge (1918 Spanish Flu) at its inception, we believe that we have the right measures in place as we embark on a second century of football.”
