NFL COVID-19 double-standard punishes Cleveland Browns, rewards Ravens

The Cleveland Browns were hosed by the NFL, despite doing the right thing

The Cleveland Browns suffered a devastating loss against the New York Jets on Sunday, unable to overcome the hand they were dealt the day before. Had the Browns simply broken rules and allowed an outbreak to happen, they would have had their game postponed until things were under control.

There’s no excuse for how the team played; even without Jarvis Landry, Rashard Higgins, Donovan Peoples-Jones, KhaDarel Hodge, Jacob Phillips, and B.J. Goodson, Cleveland should have been able to beat the Jets. And perhaps they would have had the officials not blown dead what appeared to be a Myles Garrett strip-sack turned Malcolm Smith touchdown.

In any case, the Browns were clearly at a competitive disadvantage against New York. Marvin Hall was the lone receiver on the active roster who could play, and he had been with the team for less than three weeks. Ja’Marcus Bradley and Derrick Willies (signed to the practice squad on November 17th) were elevated, giving Cleveland three receivers, none of whom were featured in the gameplan for that week. Injury and illness also forced the Browns to their third-string left tackle and right guard in Kendall Lamm and Nick Harris.

Cleveland had less than 24 hours from the time they closed their facility to when they kicked off the next day. The team’s flight to New Jersey was delayed by a few hours as they tried to figure out what exactly was going on.

And in all of this, despite the chaos, the organization reported the incident, conducted contact tracing, took the necessary precautions, and went through the proper league channels. There were no positive tests the morning on the game, and a potential outbreak was successfully averted.