The Pittsburgh Steelers are now into the regular season, following the most unique offseason in the NFL since at least World War II. While it didn’t involve a player lockout, teams still did not have physical access to their players, though they were at least able to meet with them virtually.
Even training camp looked much different from the norm, and a big part of that was the fact that there will be no games along the way to prepare for. Their first football game of the year was to be the opener against the New York Giants.
As the season progresses, however, there will be a number of questions that arise on a daily basis, and we will do our best to try to raise attention to them as they come along, in an effort to both point them out and to create discussion
Questions like, how will the players who are in new positions this year going to perform? Will the rookies be able to contribute significantly? How will Ben Roethlisberger look—and the other quarterbacks as well? Now, we even have questions about whether or not players will be in quarantine.
These are the sorts of questions among many others that we have been exploring on a daily basis and will continue to do so. Football has become a year-round pastime and there is always a question to be asked, though there is rarely a concrete answer, as I’ve learned in my years of doing this.
Question: Is today the day that the Steelers finally play the Ravens?
After six days and three separate postponements, the Ravens are in Pittsburgh (or the Pittsburgh area) after flying in yesterday evening following a final round of PCR tests. This round revealed one new player positive for backup rookie safety Geno Stone, who did not travel with the team as a result.
However, there is still the possibility that a round of point of contact tests before today’s game could result in the game being postponed to week 18, a week that currently does not exist. PCR test results would not be returned in time for kickoff, so POC tests are the only thing they can go on.
The league has been closely monitoring the situation in Baltimore, as should go without saying. They have tracked the genomic markers of the Covid-19 strand that has been passed on within their organization, and feel that they are out of the woods—or at least far enough out that they are willing to justify playing the game barring another worrying setback.
Over the past couple of days, the Ravens have activated eight players from the Reserve/Covid-19 List, with the possibility of a couple more today. Still, they will be without, among others, Lamar Jackson, Matt Judon, Mark Andrews, Willie Snead, and Calais Campbell. Brandon Williams, who was activated yesterday, was ruled out due to injury.
