A contingent of Houston Texans players have tested positive for COVID-19.
According to a tweet from the NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport, there are “several” Texans players who have tested positive for the novel coronavirus, though none of the positive players are thought to have been at NRG Park.
Rapoport tweeted: “Several Cowboys players & several Texans players have tested positive for COVID-19 recently, sources tell me & @TomPelissero. None of the players are believed to have been in their team facilities. The teams followed proper health protocols.”
On April 17, coach and general manager Bill O’Brien expressed that he wanted society to be well on its way to developing vaccines or effective treatments before they started letting fans back into stadiums.
“In my opinion, just my opinion, before we let people back into stadium and things like that, we better have the testing down, we better be on our way to a vaccine,” O’Brien said. “I don’t think you’re going to be able to move forward until we have a better grasp of the whole thing. In some areas, it’s peaked, in other areas it hasn’t peaked. People talk about it coming back in the fall.
“I mean, I think we just have to — we can’t be in a rush. I think life as we know it is going to change and we can’t be in a rush. We’ll play football at some point. We will definitely play football. When that is, who knows, but we’ll just keep doing what we have to do to stay up with the competition and when they tell us to get ready to play, we’ll try to get ready to play.”
The Texans, the Dallas Cowboys, and the NFL will have to navigate how to open the 2020 season as it appears the COVID-19 pandemic isn’t going to instantly vanish.
