NFL postpones 3 games due to COVID-19 outbreaks; Washington playing Philly Tuesday night at 7pm

Update: Washington now plays Philadelphia on Tuesday night at 7pm

Update: All 3 games getting postponed

Update: Washington at Philadelphia could move to Tuesday

Washington officially has 21 players on the Reserve/COVID-19 list(two more players were reported today besides Taylor Heinicke, but they haven’t been officially added). The Cleveland Browns and Los Angeles Rams are also having an outbreak, and both have over 20 players on their reserve list. People have been calling for these games to be postponed all week, but it seemed like that would fall on deaf ears with the league. The NFL hasn’t postponed a game this year, but did with several games last year.

Washington is set to travel to Philadelphia tomorrow, and has been making roster moves all week to even field a team. Head Coach Ron Rivera said that it would be a struggle to even dress 48 players this week. The NFL has made it clear that they won’t postpone games for competitive reasons(see the Broncos game last year where they played a practice squad WR at QB). They will postpone if they feel there are still active outbreaks going on, and the safety of other teams/players is at risk.

Ron Rivera said during today’s presser that several players are close to being able to test out of isolation. If the game is moved to Monday Tuesday night they will have additional time for players to pass the new return criteria that the NFL announced yesterday.

There are now three ways for a vaccinated player to return under the new protocols:

• Two PCR (polymerase chain reaction) tests that are either negative or produce a CT value of 35 or greater.

• One PCR test that is either negative or produces a CT value of 35 or greater, and a negative Mesa test result taken with 24 hours of the PCR test. (Mesa tests usually return results in less than an hour.)

• Two negative Mesa tests.