- Las Vegas Raiders’ right tackle Trent Brown has tested positive for COVID-19 and is listed as OUT for Sunday’s game against Tampa Bay.
- The rest of the Raiders’ starting offensive line was questionable all week but have been cleared to play.
- Assuming there are no new positive tests on Sunday morning Sunday’s 1:05 PM Pacific game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers should be played as scheduled.
The week long COVID-19 saga of the Las Vegas Raiders might not have a completely ‘happy ending’ but at this point it looks to be far from ‘worst case scenario’. The Las Vegas Review-Journal is reporting that as of Saturday morning there have been no additional positive COVID-19 tests. Assuming that there are no positive tests on Sunday morning, the Raiders’ 1:05 PM Pacific start time game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers should be played as (re)scheduled. The matchup was originally slated for prime time but the NFL rescheduled it into the 1:05 PM Pacific slot and moved the Seattle/Arizona game into prime time. The league wanted to make sure that there would be a game available should the Raiders’ COVID-19 issues force the cancellation of their matchup this week.
When right tackle Trent Brown was placed on the COVID-19 reserve list the team was forced to quarantine the rest of the starting offensive line–Kolton Miller, Gabe Jackson, Denzelle Good and Rodney Hudson–as well as safety Johnathan Abram. The matter was made worse due to what has been reported as shoddy compliance with league COVID-19 protocol. Brown was negligent in wearing his contact tracking monitor according to a Las Vegas Review-Journal report. Without accurate contact information, the Raiders were forced to err on the side of caution and assume that the rest of the starting offensive line and Abram were ‘high risk’.
The worst case scenario would have been the Raiders playing without their entire starting offensive line. As it worked it, the situation could have been much worse. On Saturday, the Raiders removed Miller, Jackson, Good and Hudson from the Reserve/COVID-19 list:
Safety Johnathan Abram had his last contact with Brown on Tuesday while the rest of the quarantined players hadn’t been in contact with him since Monday. This means that Abram won’t be able to exit the league’s COVID-19 protocol in time for Sunday’s game. He’s been officially ruled ‘OUT’:
Although Jackson, Hudson, Good and Miller are still listed as ‘QUESTIONABLE’ on the Don Best feed based on reports from CBS Sportsline it appears that they are available for Sunday’s game and should start. Sam Young is expected to take Brown’s spot on the line.
Nice redemption story coming full circle for the Raiders as well–defensive tackle David Irving has been activated off the practice squad and should play his first NFL game in two years. In 2019, the NFL suspended him indefinitely for violating the league substance abuse policy and he quit the game at that point. The NFL conditionally reinstated him last Friday. He was signed to the Las Vegas practice squad on October 20 and the understanding was that he’d be brought up to the active roster at some point. Before he quit the game he was an excellent pass rusher with eight sacks in his last 10 games.
