Pete Carroll wishes entire U.S. was as strict as Seahawks, NFL in fighting COVID-19
Pete Carroll wishes the USA had the same self-discipline as the NFL.
“Think about way back six months ago, if we’d had been this strict about everything,” the Seahawks coach said this week while his league re-doubled its masking and self-isolation protocols because of its first outbreak of the COVID-19 virus, with the Tennessee Titans. “The way we’re living all of our communities, if everybody would have had the whole country would have done about it as strictly as we’re going about right—and we’re bubbling now we’re doing it and we’re finding success doing it and we’re finding that there’s some holes in it—even at that, but had we been that just disciplined at the start of cost across the country, we would never see what we’ve seen.”
As of Thursday the U.S. had more than 7.58 million cases of COVID-19, with 212,000 deaths. Our country has 4% of the world’s population but has had more than 20% of the world’s deaths from the coronavirus.
“It’s demanding. It’s difficult. It’s uncomfortable,” Carroll said of the NFL’s restrictions and protocols to limit the virus that has mostly worked in the league—and he thinks would work in the country as a whole. “Sometimes it’s hard to make sense of it. But you got to do it anyway, because it’s the right way to handle it.”
The NFL has reached a point many people, including scientists, thought it would have reached months ago. The league in the last week has had players on four teams test positive for COVID-19 in the last two game weeks: the Titans, New England Patriots, Kansas City Chiefs and Las Vegas Raiders.
Tennessee’s case is the most alarming and widespread. In the last week, the Titans have had 12 players and nine team personnel test positive. They’ve had two games postponed. Two more positive cases Thursday caused the league to postpone Tennessee’s game against Buffalo from Sunday to Tuesday, provided the Titans have no more positive cases before then.
The league reacted to the Titans’ outbreak this week with multiple letters to its teams. Those letters outlined new or enhanced protocols for testing, safety and compliance enforcement.
They include:
- requiring teams to provide the league with 30 days of footage from closed-circuit surveillance video of activities inside facilities to monitor mask use and distancing habits
- recommending teams have players enter and use their locker rooms in shifts
- reiterating masks must be worn by all people inside the team facility at all times, with the exception of players when mask wearing wouldn’t work “due to interference with athletic activity”
- increasing the minimum number of buses for team travel from two to five
- increasing the entry-testing protocol for players signed or arriving to a team facility for the first time or after a break from being there daily to six consecutive days of testing before being allowed inside a team headquarters
The Seahawks had more than two buses taking them from their team facility in Renton to the airport last week for their flight to Miami, before the league’s new guidance. They had the same amount of extra buses in Florida to transport them to their hotel and then the stadium in north Miami-Dade County for their game against the Dolphins last weekend.
Carroll was asked if any of the league’s other heightened standards and additional COVID-19 protocols are new to the Seahawks.
“No. Our expectations and standards have been pretty much in line with everything that they’ve called for from the beginning,” Carroll said.
“The things they’ve called for are basically the things you have to do to have a chance to control this thing. So, to us it’s more of an update and kind of jerk your neck a little bit. We got to get back on and make sure on everything, you know.
“And it’s more about the discipline than the new the newness of stuff.”
Carroll has been surprised, almost amazed, the Seahawks have yet to have a confirmed positive test among the thousands they’ve had daily since reporting day of training camp July 28. The science and sampling of the entire U.S. population over the seven months of the pandemic shitting down the nation suggest every team would have at least some cases.
Seattle’s coach continues to credit his players’ and coaches’ self-discipline for staying home, getting takeout or, better, delivery food from restaurants and not socializing outside their immediate family members when they aren’t at the team facility.
Carroll got fined $100,000 and the Seahawks $250,000 last month for not wearing his mask on the sideline throughout a game. He has since said he supports the intent behind that fine, and acknowledged he must adapt and wear a mask all the time on the field for the good of the league.
He has come to see it as past of his way in helping the NFL complete this unprecedented season on time. He sees the league’s role here to be both proactive and, if need be, punitive, to ensure players and coaches follow team protocols and keep as much of the league safe as is possible.
The league’s new directives this week also state the NFL doesn’t want coaches wearing beck gaiters around their mouths and noses but surgical- or wrap-type face masks. Carroll had been wearing a gaiter, for the convenience of taking it on and off.
“They’ve made a statement about the masks, you know, the style of masks, which I think was really good,” Seattle’s 69-year-old coach said. “And I think they’re right about it.
“And we might have got a little lax about, you know. We (now) have something else we felt, OK, so we stepped that up.”
The NFL emphasized the possible penalties for not following these protocols include forfeiting draft choices and games.
Carroll says he’s OK with that, too.
“It’s really the consistency. We just have to just stay on everything at all times, forever,” Carroll said. “You know, there’s no in-between times. There’s really no relaxing time. And so, the heads up so the reminders are, really, I think, in line and just. ...
“You can fight it or you can just go along with it with the rules of the game. And that’s what we’re doing. We’re going to make sure that we...do this really well and pull it off.
“We’re trying to win a lot of games here, you know. You got to win football games. You’ve got to win the COVID game. You’ve got to win the travel game. There’s a lot going on here. And we just have to be on it and not back down.
“The reminders, to me, I think we all can use that. It’s good for us.”
This story was originally published October 9, 2020 at 5:45 AM.
