Tennessee Titans test positive for COVID-19, Steelers game uncertain
By Will Lomas
What this means for the Titans (team version)
From a team perspective, there are pros and cons to both sides, and this is just assuming that the players and personnel that tested positive aren’t major pieces of the team (which is a big assumption).
On one hand, postponing the matchup means that you will likely play in Week 5 with Taylor Lewan, Adoree Jackson, A.J. Brown, and potentially the 3 players who have tested positive for COVID.
It also gives you a week to prepare for the Buffalo Bills who have been a thorn in the side of the Titans for a long time and who look like the best Buffalo team in a decade or more. There is a benefit there too.
The negative is that this team seems like a well-oiled machine on offense right now, not to mention the kicking game. What happens if a week off of distractions pushes the Titans back into Week 1 levels of performance and they just aren’t in sync?
That means that you would have to play three critical games in a row where you are trying to get your footing vs the Bills, Steelers and Houston Texans and now there isn’t a bye week at the end of that stretch to look forward to. That isn’t an ideal situation.
There are definitely more pros than cons to postponing the game if possible, but is the league really going to punish the Pittsburgh Steelers for a mistake that the Tennessee Titans made? I’m not so sure that they would and they might look at this as a chance to enforce some soft punishment to the Titans as a message to the rest of the teams in the NFL.
That message being, if you don’t do everything you can to keep COVID and NFL out of the same sentence, then get ready to play a game without any practice that week and suffer the consequences.