Broncos QBs reportedly failed in attempt to beat the NFL’s COVID protocol last season
During the 2020 season, the Chiefs had a game moved from Sunday to Monday and another from Thursday to Monday because of other teams’ COVID-19 issues.
The NFL rescheduled games and altered the schedule to get all the games played during the pandemic.
While the league made some adjustments, it made no effort to help the Denver Broncos in November after the team’s quarterbacks tested positive for COVID-19.
Drew Lock, the former Mizzou/Lee’s Summit High School star, along with backups Brett Rypien and Blake Bortles were ruled out for the Broncos-Saints game for being “high risk close contacts” to fellow Broncos quarterback Jeff Driskel.
Consequently, the Broncos called up practice squad wide receiver Kendall Hinton, who had played quarterback in college, to start against the Saints. Denver was crushed 31-3 at home.
A story by Sam Farmer of the Los Angeles Times outlines why the NFL took a hard line against Denver, despite “several frustrated pleas” by John Elway, the Broncos president of football operations.
That story says players, coach and team employees wore electronic devices “at work that recorded the proximity and duration of contact between users.” The Broncos quarterbacks, Farmer wrote, tried to trick the COVID contact-tracing devices.
The league also looked at video from each team’s practice facility, and that’s when the quarterbacks were busted.
“John Elway, Denver’s president of football operations, made several frustrated pleas to Goodell to postpone the Sunday game until Tuesday, when the quarterbacks would be available,” Farmer wrote. “The league denied those requests because surveillance video from Denver’s facility showed the quarterbacks had tried to fool the system. They had removed their contact-tracing devices and put them in the four corners of the meeting room, then they sat together to watch film. That close contact automatically made them ineligible to play.”
Days after the Broncos-Saints game, Lock apologized for his part in missing the game. But he blamed it on the quarterbacks not wearing masks.
“I’ll own up to this mistake,” Lock said, per the Denver Post. “Again, I feel like this team and everyone that’s been involved has done a great job with (COVID) protocols. (The quarterbacks) came in on (last) Tuesday and got some extra work in when no one was here, and we got too lackadaisical with (wearing masks). It ended up hurting us and it hurt this team.”
You can read more of the Los Angeles Times story here.
This story was originally published September 7, 2021 at 12:43 PM with the headline "Broncos QBs reportedly failed in attempt to beat the NFL’s COVID protocol last season."
