The Kansas City Chiefs and New England Patriots game appears to be headed toward a Monday night reschedule.
According to NFL Network reporters Ian Rapoport and Tom Pelissero, the current plan is for the Week 4 game between the Patriots and the Chiefs to be played on Monday. Rapoport noted that this is the preference of both teams, but it ultimately won’t be left up to them. They need to continue to have negative test results following the positive tests of Cam Newton and Jordan Ta’amu.
Since the initial positive tests, everything has come back negative for both the Chiefs and the Patriots.
The current plan, pending the results of point of care tests, is for #Patriots–#Chiefs to play on Monday, sources tell me and @TomPelissero. It’s the preference from both teams, and there have been no additional positives so far, which is a positive sign.
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) October 4, 2020
It makes sense that Kansas City would request the game to be played on Monday. The Chiefs would face a schedule crunch if the game had to be played on Tuesday.
Another hurdle that the NFL needs to address is getting the Patriots to Arrowhead Stadium in a timely fashion. They’re still in New England and the NFL has previously barred teams from same-day travel for games. They could opt to allow the Patriots to travel on the same-day in these extreme circumstances but that remains to be seen.
While “Monday Night Football” is typically played on ESPN, this game would likely stay with the original broadcast network, which is CBS. If there’s a conflict on the main CBS network, they might have to move the game to CBS Sports Network. The game would also need to be played ahead of the Green Bay Packers vs. Atlanta Falcons game on “Monday Night Football.” That game is set for 7:15 p.m. CT, so you’ll probably be looking at 5:00 p.m. CT kickoff in Kansas City.
All-in-all there’s still a lot to be determined and even if the game is rescheduled for Monday, there’s potential for the game to be delayed further pending game day COVID-19 test results.
