The Detroit Lions and New Orleans Saints will play their 1 p.m. game today as scheduled after news that one Saints player tested positive for COVID-19, and Matthew Stafford’s own scare with the virus is a big reason why.
Saints fullback Michael Burton, a former Lion, received a positive COVID-19 test after traveling with the team to Detroit, Pro Football Talk reported late Saturday night.
Burton was re-tested twice, and both tests came back negative, according to Fox Sports.
With no other known positive tests on either team, NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said in an email Sunday morning the Lions-Saints game will go on as scheduled.
The NFL changed its testing protocols in early August, after Stafford was briefly placed on the reserve/COVID-19 list, to allow asymptomatic players who test positive for the virus to take two more tests in order to confirm the diagnosis.
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If both tests, including one point-of-care test, come back negative, the initial test is considered to be an unconfirmed positive, and the player is allowed to resume football activities immediately.
Before the change, players who test positive were required to test negative on consecutive days before rejoining their team.
Stafford, who repeatedly tested negative after his initial positive, spent three days on the reserve/COVID-19 list before the Lions issued a strongly worded statement saying he was the victim of a false positive.
“I think the important point that I’d drive home, and it’s a little bit of a technical point, is that we and others are clearly learning that not every positive test means a new case of COVID infection,” NFL chief medical officer Dr. Allen Sills said in August. “What I mean is that these tests are obviously looking at the effects that the virus has on the body and the body’s response to those effects.
“So in a sense I like to say that the COVID test shows us the footprints of the infection, but you can’t always tell from those footprints if those are three hours old or three days old or three months old. The footprints can be there for some time. And that brings up why I say that not every positive test result means a new COVID infection.”
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Sills said the concern was with active positive cases that can be spread to others.
The NFL postponed two games this week amid COVID-19 concerns, moving today’s scheduled Tennessee Titans-Pittsburgh Steelers game to Week 7, and delaying today’s Kansas City Chiefs-New England Patriots game until at least Monday or Tuesday.
At least 18 members of the Titans organization reportedly have tested positive for the virus over the past week, though no one on the team they played last Sunday, the Minnesota Vikings, has tested positive.
Both the Chiefs and Patriots had positive COVID-19 cases late in the week, including New England quarterback Cam Newton. If more players on either team test positive, the game could be rescheduled for later in the season.
The NFL and NFL Players Association agreed this week to extend daily coronavirus testing indefinitely, and Lions coach Matt Patricia said Tennessee’s COVID-19 outbreak was a reminder to all that “COVID is still real.”
“We’re in our world of testing every day and being in the building and kind of trying to do everything right, but COVID is still real,” Patricia said. “It’s out there and we’ve got to be careful, we’ve got to do our diligence to take care of each other and take care of our families and our teammates’ families and just be disciplined with it.”
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