ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — With a third positive COVID-19 test result in the last two days, the Denver Broncos canceled Wednesday’s practice and closed the facility to coaches, players and most other team employees.
Broncos president and CEO Joe Ellis and president of football operations/general manager John Elway tested positive for the coronavirus Tuesday, and when practice squad tackle Darrin Paulo tested positive Wednesday morning, coach Vic Fangio canceled practices and the Broncos conducted all of their meetings remotely, with the team’s coaches working from home as well.
The only players on-site were those who needed treatment from the team’s medical staff.
“We just thought it was the best thing to do in light of the number of tests we’ve had recently,” Fangio said.
Paulo was added to the reserve/COVID-19 list. Guard Graham Glasgow tested positive last week and was moved to the reserve/COVID-19 list, while defensive coordinator Ed Donatell was also put under the COVID-19 protocols and did not attend practices last week or Sunday’s game against the Los Angeles Chargers.
Since Oct. 17, the Broncos have had three assistant coaches in all – – running backs coach Curtis Modkins, offensive line coach Mike Munchak and Donatell — under the COVID-19 protocols, to go with Ellis, Elway, Glasgow and Paulo. The Broncos have not said whether Donatell and Munchak tested positive for virus or were deemed to be close contacts to someone who has.
Modkins returned to practices last week, while Fangio said Wednesday that Munchak would be back at practice Thursday. The Broncos (3-4) are scheduled to play the Falcons on Sunday in Atlanta.
“There’s always concern,” Fangio said of the recent positive tests. “The thing I feel good about is none of the tests, the positive tests that we’ve had, have originated from this building. … I actually feel better when everybody’s here than when they’re not here.”
The Broncos had a light practice scheduled for Wednesday — what Fangio has routinely called a “jog-through” — and Fangio said Wednesday that he hadn’t decided if the team would add a Saturday practice, as the Broncos did last week when Fangio also canceled a workout after Glasgow’s positive test.
Fangio met remotely with the players Wednesday morning and gave them an update on the team’s practice plans as well as everything surrounding the recent positive tests. Fangio said he has continued to emphasize to the team that the positive tests have resulted from contacts outside of the team’s facility as the number of cases has surged in recent weeks in Colorado.
The Broncos have been operating under the NFL’s more intensive, enhanced protocols since Modkins tested positive in October.
“We’re of the mindset [that] we started this year knowing we were going to have to do some improvising and adjusting,” Fangio said. “… When you first get the news that you can’t do this or can’t do that, you’re a little pissed off and everything, but you take a few minutes, take a deep breath and figure out how we’re going to beat it and get over this, and that’s what we do.”
Fangio did admit Wednesday that while canceling practice and other team activities at the Broncos’ complex was the prudent and safest thing to do, he’d still rather have the players on-site.
“I don’t like when they’re not here together,” Fangio said. “I think they’re safer in this building than when they’re not in this building.”
After Elway’s and Ellis’ positive tests Tuesday, the NFL’s chief medical officer, Dr. Allen Sills, said: “We can say with a reasonably high degree of certainty that in these cases, most of these cases, that the exposure, the infection, did not originate inside the building; it came outside the building. … As virus levels surge in the community, people are going to get more exposed outside the building and that’s where they get infected.”
