The NFL originally wanted to cancel last night’s game between the Seahawks and the Rams over the latter’s COVID-19 outbreak. This news comes from NFLPA president, Browns center J.C. Tretter – who says the league also wanted to axe the Eagles/Washington matchup and the Raiders/Browns game for the same reasons.
Tretter says the player’s union fought back in order to get those six teams their game checks.
#Browns JC Tretter said the #NFL wanted to cancel the 3 games last week because of the COVID-19 outbreaks, and the NFLPA voted to reschedule them pic.twitter.com/uMCp8ldVwU
— Mary Kay Cabot (@MaryKayCabot) December 22, 2021
The rules that the NFLPA and the league agreed to before this season began had several stipulations on potential forfeits – among them being that the COVID-19 outbreak had to be among unvaccinated players.
At last count, 97% of the league is vaccinated and coach Pete Carroll says his team all recently got booster shots. That means the vast majority of the players who wound up on COVID-19 lists this week (including 10 Seahawks) were there despite doing everything in their power to avoid catching the virus. As far as we’re aware, there hasn’t been one reported protocol violation for any of the teams going through COVID issues.
Fans of Seattle have every reason to complain about how events unfolded for this team in Week 15, to say nothing of the officiating on Tuesday evening. Tretter and the NFLPA did the right thing, though.
