OT: First forfeit of the season?

The Baltimore Ravens, much like the Tennessee Titans earlier in the season, are plagued by COVID-19 right before playing the Pittsburgh Steelers. As it stands right now the starting QB, 1st and 2nd string RBs, 2 offensive linemen, 2 defensive linemen, and 1 starting linebacker placed on the Covid list. Baltimore has disciplined the staff member who broke protocol.

Does the NFL extend the season to have a week 18 to make up this game, force Baltimore to forfeit for breaking protocol, or open up the 8th playoff spot in the playoffs? Seems unfair to the #1 seeded team, in this case Pittsburgh, to force them to play week 1 of the playoffs, when this has happened twice to them now. It would also be unfair to give every other team to make the playoffs and extra week off, while they reschedule this game on a day when the #1 seed would have off.

There’s a bias against the Steelers on this board, which I understand, but imagine if this were the Cardinals how we’d react. IMO the fairest outcome is to either play the game this week or force Baltimore to forfeit this weeks game.

 

8 team playoff incoming at this rate

 

Both teams miss out on paychecks

 

https://www.thebiglead.com/posts/nfl-players-no-pay-forfeit-games-bills-titans-01em48fm0gtc

 

As Covid completely engulfs this country in the next month, another game with playoff implications could be postponed necessitating a buffer week for make up games in a new week 18.

the nfl SHOULD be prepping to bubble the playoffs.

 

Tom Pelissero
@TomPelissero
· 5m
#Ravens QB Lamar Jackson's positive test came in Thursday's round of COVID-19 testing. He still won't play Tuesday night against the #Steelers, but based on the timeline, it's possible he could be cleared in time for the rescheduled Dec. 7 game against the #Cowboys.

 

so, Major League Baseball played their entire season without a bubble but did bubble the playoffs right?

is it just hubris on the NFL’s part why there’s no plan for something like this for the postseason? It could be so simple. Between the new stadium in Inglewood, The Home Depot Center in Carson, The Colosseum and the Rose Bowl, You could do the bubble in ONE site in LA.

no one wants to see playoffs with major players taken out of it because of Covid and as bad as the spread is now, it’s only going to get worse with the holiday season, travel, Covid fatigue and well, the fact that the government is literally doing nothing about it.

has there been any talk of a bubble for the playoffs?

 

so when would they reschedule that Thursday night game for? If they play Tuesday, that is a bitch of a turnaround to play Sun. Do they push that Dallas Baltimore game to Monday night?

 

And what do you suggest they do? I’m dying to hear the solution. Oh wait, I’m sure Biden & the crew would’ve had us in a different result . Lol

 

I was going to say "let's not make this political," but whatever. Maybe the government could have avoided creating a culture war over it, and the lame duck president could have encouraged people to take it seriously. Y'know, just maybe.

 

bubble up the playoffs in LA with the The Rose Bowl, Colisseum, Rams New Stadium, Chargers Stadium down in Carson. 4 playoff sites. One city.

basically the same thing the NBA and MLB and NHL did for the playoffs.

this isn’t rocket science Buck.

 

don’t bother. There’s nothing that can be done... even though other countries in the world (China, Vietnam, Taiwan, New Zealand) figured out how to deal with the pandemic and are pretty much completely back to normal because their governments took action to not only mitigate the virus but take care of their populations economically and medically so they weren’t stuck in a perpetual ish-show. And Canada and Europe which both showed the stones to do what was necessary last spring to control the virus so that it limited the spread and death and then when it came back in cold/flu and fall season AGAIN did what was necessary to mitigate and are already seeing death rates and spread start to drop again.

but yeah... nothing could be done even though 1st world countries all over Earth havent had near the pathetic amount of death and destruction that we have.