In late September, the Steelers were forced to move their Week 4 game against the Titans to Week 7 after one of many COVID outbreaks in Tennessee’s facility. As part of that movement, the Steelers’ game against the Ravens in Week 7 was moved to Week 8. Pittsburgh won that game, 28-24, and Mike Tomlin’s team was looking forward to the rematch on Thanksgiving night.
Not so fast, as they say. For the second time this season, the Steelers are having to move a crucial game from one spot to another. As the Ravens have also had multiple COVID outbreaks of late, the NFL has moved that game from Thanksgiving evening to Sunday afternoon. That’s good in the abstract in that it gives Pittsburgh a little longer to prepare, but it’s quite clear that the Steelers are sick of this.
OK, #Steelers players are not happy. In messages on Twitter and to me. This is the second time this season their schedule has been altered very close to the supposed-to-be game day.
— Aditi Kinkhabwala (@AKinkhabwala) November 25, 2020
First the NFL takes away our bye week because another team can’t get their Covid situation together, now they take away our Thanksgiving primetime game for the same reason. Smh.
— JuJu Smith-Schuster (@TeamJuJu) November 25, 2020
They have a point, but what else was the NFL supposed to do? The Ravens have multiple players on the Reserve/COVID list at this point, and word is, more cases are to be expected. It’s bad luck of the draw that the Steelers are in this spot, but the only other option is to play this game on Thanksgiving night without the contact tracing and testing that the NFL has required… and though it’s been bumpy at best, that kind of adherence to any sort of standards is the only reason there’s still an NFL season at this point — and the complete lack of such standards among the current administration is the primary reason there’s no visible letup to the pandemic in a national sense.
So, yes — the Steelers have a right to be upset about this. But they could very well be far more upset about the other option if it were to play out.
