Roger Goodell Explains Difference Between Ravens, Broncos COVID-19 Situations

Two teams found themselves in hot water this past week due to COVID-19, but only one saw their Week 12 game rescheduled.

The Ravens placed 18 players on their reserve/COVID-19 list last week alone, leading the league to reschedule Baltimore’s game against the Pittsburgh Steelers three different times. The game finally was played Wednesday — nearly one week after it originally was scheduled.

The Broncos, however, played their game against the New Orleans Saints as scheduled Sunday despite placing their three remaining quarterbacks on their COVID-19 list less than 24 hours before kickoff. Denver was forced to call up practice squad wideout and former Wake Forest quarterback Kendall Hinton to play behind center.

The NFL has faced plenty of questions about why Baltimore’s game was rescheduled but Denver’s was not. Commissioner Roger Goodell addressed the issue during halftime of Wednesday’s Ravens-Steelers game.

“Well Mike (Tirico), it starts with our decisions are based on medical issues and with that being our priority, and we told the clubs that early in the year,” he said, as seen on NBC’s coverage of the game. “They understand that absent a medical issue, we’re going to play the games, and that we gave each club additional flexibility with respect to the roster size and flexibility of moving people off of the reserve list and back on to the active roster. That was to make sure the games were played.

“On the other hand, we want to make sure that we’re preventing the spread of the virus. And that’s why when we see high-risk close contact like we had in Denver, regardless of the position group, we’re going to make sure that those players aren’t in a position where they can infect others, whether they’re on their own team or whether (they’re on) the opposing team. So that’s been done several times throughout the season.”

The NFL did in fact produce a memo explaining these guidelines in mid October. Still, head coach Vic Fangio and multiple players expressed frustration over the league’s decision not to move the game.

Like it or not, however, the NFL has the policies to back up their choice.