According to reports surfacing this afternoon, it appears as though the Baltimore Ravens’ Covid-19 outbreak has not yet abated. Via Mike Florio, among others, there were multiple new positive PCR test results today, consisting of players and staff.
This is now the eight consecutive days in which members of the Ravens organization have tested positive for Covid-19, beginning with last Sunday’s game against the Tennessee Titans. It is not immediately clear what this latest news will do relative to the status of Tuesday’s scheduled game.
The NFL has already moved the game twice, which was originally scheduled to be conducted on Thanksgiving night. After several days of new positives, it was moved to Sunday afternoon—the game would be just wrapping up now—and then to Tuesday night.
Jay Glazer earlier in the day reported that the Ravens would be returning to their facility tonight for conditioning work; it is unclear if that will still be the case. This is in spite of the fact that head coach John Harbaugh said days ago that they would be shutting down their facility until at least Monday—which is tomorrow.
Reports over the past couple of days have indicated that the NFL believes that it has confidently identified and tracked the development of the strand of Covid-19 that infected the Ravens’ organization, and that they believe that they are nearing the tail end of the incubation period of that event.
Until there is an update on who tested positive and whether or not they were players whom the league was monitoring as a likely possibility based on contact tracing, we won’t know if this latest development represents a curveball in their eyes that could jeopardize Tuesday’s game or remains within the parameters of expectation.
According to Jeff Zrebiec, there is at least one player positive test, and the player is a starter. I have already mentioned this multiple times, but it could be Derek Wolfe, the defensive lineman who had been listed on the projected injury reports as being out or limited with an illness.
Can confirm the @ProFootballTalk report that the Ravens learned of more positive tests for COVID-19 today. At least one of them was from a player (another starter). This marks the eighth consecutive day with a positive day.
— Jeff Zrebiec (@jeffzrebiec) November 29, 2020
Baltimore already has five or so defensive linemen on the Reserve/Covid-19 List, though some of them are expected to be high-risk close contacts—which does not mean that they can’t subsequently test positive. The positive today could even be from one of the players already on reserve as a close contact, such as Brandon Williams. We will likely know more—such as names—in a short period of time.
