Rams now have 16 players on COVID-19 list. Seahawks still have none. They play Sunday
The Rams have 16 players on the NFL COVID-19 list, out indefinitely.
The Seahawks have none.
They play Sunday in Inglewood, California, with Seattle’s slim playoff hopes at stake.
“All negative. I was thrilled about that, with all that’s going on around the league,” Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said before practice Wednesday, hours after the team’s second of two COVID tests this week inside trailers that have been set up for two years in the players’ parking lot of their training facility.
Testing two times each week is twice the amount of testing the NFL requires this season for vaccinated players. Carroll said he believes the Seahawks are the only NFL team that has done twice-per-week COVID testing all season, at the club’s own expense. Seattle, which returned Sunday night from beating the Texans in Houston, began this season in September with all but two of its 53 active-roster and 16 practice-squad players vaccinated against the coronavirus.
“We were wearing masks everywhere we were going, with the thought that something could happen, because it’s been so prevalent in other places,” Carroll said.
At least 28 teams have had 97 players added to the COVID list since Monday. Washington and Cleveland had 18 players each on the list as of Wednesday afternoon.
The Rams’ outbreak of 16 cases includes starting running back Darrell Henderson and star wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. Los Angeles added three more to the COVID-19 list Wednesday: linebacker Justin Hollins plus tight ends Johnny Mundt and Jared Pinkney.
The Seahawks entered Wednesday one of four teams in the 32-team league without a player on the reserve/COVID-19 list. Seattle has has only one player with a confirmed positive test since NFL testing began in the summer of 2020.
Tight end Gerald Everett became the first Seahawk COVID case in late September. He missed two games and has been back playing each week since early October.
“Our guys continue to manage their world. That’s what they’re doing,” Carroll said. “They are managing it with consciousness to make the right decisions.
“This doesn’t just happen,” the 70-year-old coach said of going onto the COVID list. “It happens because you make mistakes along the line.
“So our guys are doing great. Just thrilled about that. ...
“We are battling.”
At the start of the week, after the Seahawks got back from Texas and the Rams began piling up players testing positive, Carroll said knew his team’s past accomplishments don’t mean a ton if players get exposed to the coronavirus now.
“We are holding on right now,” the coach said Monday.
The 70-year-old coach has been championing mask wearing, testing and vaccinating against the coronavirus for his team and the general populace since the beginning of the pandemic in early 2020. He held testing events last year and vaccination events this year at the team’s headquarters in Renton for players’ families, friends and guests.
Last week, the Seahawks hosted a vaccine-booster drive at their Virginia Mason Athletic Center. Carroll said Monday he didn’t have the numbers of players who opted to get a third vaccination shot. It wasn’t all.
The Seahawks were the only NFL team without a confirmed case of COVID-19 last year. This season, they have had one. Tight end Gerald Everett became the team’s first confirmed COVID case in late September. He missed two games after testing positive.
Everett caught his third touchdown pass of the season from Wilson in Houston.
Carroll said guarding against complacency and players letting down their guards now almost two full years into the fight against the pandemic is the biggest challenge currently for him, the Seahawks — and the entire world.
“That’s it, man. That’s the whole issue, worldwide. And people get fatigued from it. We just can’t. We can’t let that happen,” Carroll said.
“And even though everyone is human and you get worn down by the reminders and the constant ... because it is, it’s stressful when you have to be continually reminded and thoughtful of something that you wouldn’t normally do.
“And it wears on you. We try to avoid it. We look for ways to get out of it. We hear conversations about it all the time. That’s why the national clamor, you know. It is about being diligent. The diligence comes from the constant reminders and the discipline that it takes to stick with it.”
Carroll said “it’s really been an enormous challenge. I’ve embraced the challenge of it.”
“Everybody has to be continually reminded — and stop griping about it,” the coach said. “Stop griping about being healthy, and helping other people be healthy, you know what I mean? I don’t get that. That’s beyond me.
“It’s so far away from personal rights. I don’t get it. We are just trying to stay healthy.”
As the Seahawks — and the globe — close in on almost two full years of the pandemic, Seattle team captain Bobby Wagner is watching for teammates whose enthusiasm and compliance with the all the Seahawks’ safeguards against the coronavirus may be waning.
“Obviously, everybody in the world is probably tired of this,” Wagner said. “Nobody could have thought we would have still be in this position at this time.
“But at the same time, as soon as you say to somebody that maybe is tired or whatever that it’s not about you it’s about the people around you, I think that should be a strong enough message to get across.
“If you don’t understand that, then I don’t know what you are thinking.
“I don’t think we have guys in the building that want to put anybody in danger. We’ve seen the effects that this can have. We’ve had players who’ve had family members pass away from this. So it’s more of a respect thing, respecting people’s health and family situation.
“You want to make sure you are not a reason that that happens to someone else.”
This story was originally published December 15, 2021 at 2:12 PM.
