The NFL was monitoring the situation on a day-to-day basis and the game, as of Thursday morning, remained scheduled for Sunday at 1:15 p.m. Eastern time, according to a person familiar with the league’s planning. The game originally was scheduled for Thanksgiving night but the NFL announced Wednesday that it was being postponed until Sunday afternoon. NBC is to televise the game with its main broadcasting crew, including announcers Al Michaels, Cris Collinsworth and Michele Tafoya.
As of Wednesday, seven Ravens players had tested positive for the coronavirus in recent days, according to a person familiar with the testing results. Also, more than five Ravens staff members had tested positive.
Allen Sills, the NFL’s chief medical officer, told the NFL Network on Wednesday that the league had “done a very, very deep dive into this situation” through interviews, review of the data and genomic sequencing and believed the end of the outbreak was nearing.
“We feel like we have a really good handle on exactly when transmission occurred and how it occurred,” Sills said. “And I think that we feel like we’re just a couple days away from being out of that window of vulnerability for that transmission event. So obviously you have to take each day as it comes and look for any new data that may emerge. But right now we simply feel like that as of [Thursday] we would not have confidence in going forward but I think we feel we’re very close to the end of that transmission event and at present we’re targeting Sunday, absent any new information that would change the facts that we have right now.”
The Ravens announced Wednesday evening they were disciplining a staff member for actions related to the team’s coronavirus cases. The team declined to provide further details. The NFL is leaving open the possibility of disciplining the Ravens, according to a person close to the situation. The league previously fined the Tennessee Titans $350,000 and fined the Las Vegas Raiders $500,000 and stripped them of a sixth-round draft pick for protocol violations.
If the Ravens-Steelers game is further delayed until Monday or Tuesday, that would impact the Ravens’ scheduled game next Thursday night against the Dallas Cowboys. If the Ravens-Steelers game cannot be played at all in Week 12, the NFL could be forced to add a Week 18 to the regular season. League leaders have said they would do that if all games cannot be played in the current 17-week framework. The Ravens and Steelers already have had their bye weeks, so the game could not be rescheduled for later in the season without the addition of a Week 18.
Two other NFL teams, the Atlanta Falcons and Cleveland Browns, announced they were operating remotely Thursday because of positive coronavirus tests. The Falcons said they had positive tests by two staffers not on the coaching staff. The Browns said they had a positive test result by a player. The Falcons are scheduled to host the Raiders on Sunday. The Browns are scheduled to play Sunday at Jacksonville.