Russell Wilson, Bobby Wagner, Pete Carroll mask up to start Seahawks’ COVID training camp
They looked less like Seahawks, more like marauders.
Really, they looked like most of us outside our homes right now.
Russell Wilson, Pete Carroll, Bobby Wagner, Bruce Irvin, Duane Brown—they and all Seahawks were wearing masks as players and coaches reported to the team’s facility in Renton Tuesday to begin a training camp like no other.
The NFL knows the rest of the sports world—and society—is watching it to see how the professional sport with the largest rosters that most violates social distancing by its in-your-face, violent essence is going to pull off this camp and season amid the coronavirus pandemic.
“We’re really in the mode of adaptation,” Carroll said.
The veteran coach has said that multiple times since the COVID-19 virus began shutting down the NFL and the country in March.
They really are in that mode now.
Training camp didn’t begin Tuesday as much as COVID-19 testing did.
Testing is NFL training camp in 2020.
Each player and coach reported for camp by reporting straight into a tent the league’s national contractor BioReference Labs has set up outside the Virginia Mason Athletic Center. Each Seahawk got a polymerise chain reaction (PCR) test. A technician conducted it with a nasal swab.
PCR tests are used to test directly for the presence of the COVID-19 antigen, not for the presence of the body’s immune system or antibodies. The PCR test detects whether the subject has the virus now or had it very recently. The idea is to identify and separate those found to be infected early on and immediately, to limit possible exposure to teammates.
Dr. Edward Wright, a University of Sussex senior lecturer in microbiology, told Verdict Medical Devices in April PCR tests, as opposed to antibody tests, “detect the genetic information of the virus, the RNA. That’s only possible if the virus is there and someone is actively infected.”
Irvin was thrilled to be there Tuesday. He posted on his Twitter page online: “Damn it feels great to be home! Only took 4 years but ayeeeee im backkk!”
After their tests Tuesday, the players were sent away from the team facility, back home or to their hotel.
On Wednesday, Seahawks players and coaches will return to the team facility parking lot to get a second COVID-19 nasal-swab test—and then boomerang back home again without stepping into the building. They will not be tested Thursday; that will be another day of virtual, Zoom football training in front of computer screens. Friday, the players will get their third COVID-19 test in four days.
Only after a player has passed those three tests can they enter the team facility for the first time since January. The pandemic closed NFL team facilities in March.
Saturday and Sunday, the fifth and sixth days of camp, players who have passed all their COVID-19 tests will be issued “Kinexon proximity tracking devices.” Those are to give each team’s infection control officer, most likely the head athletic trainer, a way to track those people with which each player comes in contact each day. The team will use that information in the event the player does test positive for the coronavirus, to isolate those he contacted before he found out he was positive.
Players will also be getting their annual camp physical exams Saturday and Sunday.
They will begin getting daily COVID-19 testing from Saturday through the first two weeks of camp, Aug. 11. On that day, if the league determines the positive test rate is less than 5%, testing will go to every other day. If the cumulative positive rate is still above 5% on Aug. 11, the league will continue to require daily testing until that rate drops below 5%.
The league will allow players to get fitted for football equipment on Saturday and Sunday while continuing “virtual football related meetings.” The league emphasizes “these activities must be conducted in a manner to minimize the risk of exposure to the virus and may not interfere with physical examinations.”
Next week, the Seahawks who have passed their COVID-19 tests will begin strength and conditioning workouts. Those may include light, walk-through practices on the field.
The NFL Players’ Association said Tuesday afternoon 21 players had tested positive for COVID-19 upon reporting for training camps. That process began last week, with rookies, quarterbacks and injured players allowed to report days early. The overwhelming majority of NFL players reported Tuesday.
BioReference Labs have promised the league test results by 24 hours. So those 21 positive-testing players do not represent much of the league’s pool of tested players. The league is expecting those numbers to go up as the week goes on.
As of the NFL’s official transactions posting mid-afternoon Tuesday, 32 players across the league were on the new reserve/COVID-19 list.
The NFL’s agreement Friday with the NFLPA on COVID-19 testing and protocols for training camp created this new roster reserve list category for a player who either tests positive for COVID-19 or who has been quarantined after having been in close contact with an infected person or person. Teams may not, per the league’s protocol, whether a player is in quarantine or has tested positive for the coronavirus.
Reportedly, a player can come off the reserve/COVID-19 list when the became healthy and virus-free.
With offensive lineman Chance Warmack informing the team he is going to opt out of the season, the Seahawks essentially have 79 players on their camp roster. That is one below the new preseason roster limit set by the league’s agreement with its players’ union late last week. Officially, Seattle still has 80 players because Warmack’s opt out has yet to become official.
The Seahawks got to their essentially 79 on Tuesday by signing the remaining six of their eight rookie draft choices.
The masks Wagner, Wilson, Carroll, Irvin and the rest of the Seahawks wore Tuesday are going to be as much a part of this COVID-19 training camp as footballs and cleats. According to infectious disease protocols the NFL established for team facilities last month, players and team staff must wear masks at all times while at team buildings, unless they can’t wear a mask due to athletic activity. Teams are to have on hand two weeks’ supply of surgical and cloth masks for players and staff. Teams are also required to provide goggles, full face shields, gowns and gloves for their medical staffs.
The NFL has been considering the possibility of players wearing full, eyebrow-to-chin face shields attached to the inside front of helmets this season. Oakley has designed one to snap onto the front bars of helmets, an extended visor with breathe holes over the mouth. It is intended to slow the spread of the COVID-19 virus among football players, who will be violating the public-health community’s physical-distancing recommendations on every play.
As of last week the league intended to recommend the face shields to players, not make them mandatory this year.
“That’s going to be crazy, if we have to do that,” Wilson said last week during his appearance with guest host and Seahawks fan Joel McHale on ABC television’s Jimmy Kimmel Live
“I’ve actually been practicing with it, though, every day, just so I can get used to it—if we have to.”
This training camp, this unprecedented NFL season, who knows?
The Seahawks have scheduled a media online Zoom call with Wagner, their All-Pro linebacker, for Wednesday afternoon.
If he’s at the facility, yes, he’ll be wearing a mask.
