The Broncos and the NFL have run into a significant problem. Jeff Driskel‘s positive COVID-19 test earlier this week will lead to an unprecedented situation.
None of the Broncos’ three other QBs will be eligible to play Sunday, Adam Schefter of ESPN.com tweets. Drew Lock, Brett Rypien and Blake Bortles have been deemed high-risk close contacts of Driskel. The NFL forced the Broncos to pull the three passers out of practice earlier today, Mike Klis of 9News tweets.
With the Broncos having no available QBs, this certainly puts the viability of Sunday’s Denver-New Orleans game in doubt. However, this game is still on schedule for Sunday, NFL.com’s Ian Rapoport tweets. This seems like a tenuous proposition, but as of now, the Broncos would be forced to deploy a true emergency quarterback. They cannot sign any free agent passer to play Sunday, due to COVID-19 protocols.
Driskel’s Thursday positive test coincided with his three non-infected teammates not wearing masks, Schefter adds (on Twitter). It is not known how long the trio went without masks, but it was evidently long enough for the NFL to sideline an entire team’s QB room. The Patriots saw Cam Newton sidelined because of the virus earlier this season, and COVID-positive Lamar Jackson will miss Tuesday’s Ravens-Steelers game — should it stay on as scheduled. But the Broncos’ predicament drags the NFL into new territory regarding the virus.
The Broncos have a wide receiver on their practice squad, Kendall Hinton, who played quarterback at Wake Forest for three seasons, Klis adds (on Twitter). Quality control coach Rob Calabrese worked in that role at practice Saturday, Klis tweets. Hinton attempted 251 career passes with the Demon Deacons, though most of them came in 2015. He ran for 390 yards and seven TDs that season.
Tebow time!
At least we don’t have to listen to San Francisco fans complain anymore. Yes, your game should also have been postponed, but compared to zero quarterbacks? Yikes!
Elway is lacing up his cleats
The league already said their quality control coach who QBd their practice can’t play for them they aren’t going to let Elway.
I think he was… you know what, nevermind.
Lol
Elway already in Hall of Fame so can’t come out of Retrement.
Jesus Christ sarcasm is lost on your dimwits. This is how Biden got so many votes
@Rhino: Please keep your political crying and whining like a baby out of this. It’s pathetic.
@rct
Grow a pair
@markdavisbarber: I have a pair, that’s why I’m not pathetically whining and crying about Biden winning the election on an article about Denver Broncos QBs.
Brass Balls….
Not Displayed….
Your moms pathetic
I think you trumpalumpa.
hahaha nice Rhino:)
My bad I forgot to mention prior to beginning my sentence….”sarcasm warning” so people would understand that I was going to say something that could be considered sarcasm. Please forgive me for thinking that there were some decent ppl out there who didn’t believe everything posted online.
Just to be clear….all the above is sarcasm
lol it wasn’t aimed at you…it was towards the next comment by @dirtbagfrietas
What a disaster.
Falco!
I prefer Johnny Utah if we’re recycling fictional Ohio State QBs played by Keanu Reeves.
Am I only one who immediately thought of the Austrian singer? Der Kommisar, Rock Me Amadeus…
yes
Its a disgrace the NFL can deem the most important players ineligible (who have yet to test positive) and make them still play.
Incubation period for Covid is 2-14 days. If they test negative now does not mean they don’t have it. It’s a disgrace people still aren’t educated enough to understand this.
I’m pretty sure GoLandCrabs was suggesting it’s unreasonable to still have the game on Sunday when one team has no QBs, not that it’s unreasonable to clamp down on Covid exposure.
You’re right, I might have read his comment wrong. I apologize GoLandCrabs
It’s sad that the internet experts always have to chime in with personal insults
Internet expert is a term you should use for when someone is wrong. The insult was too much tho youre right
I am fully aware of the 14 day period. The game should be delayed when players are ineligible due to precaution.
That makes perfect sense, again i apologize for my misreading of your comment
It’s a disgrace there is so many nannies trying to control other people’s lives. I can name a dozen things that kill people at a higher risk than covid. With profession athletes I could likely find over a hundred. In fact I can’t think of one professional athlete that has died of COVID in the the US, so stop being such a control freak. And yes, my family has had COVID and everyone is fine as we have no underlying health conditions.
Well, we’re all certainly glad for your “everything is fine with me, therefore everything is fine with everybody” attitude.
Is it also being a nanny to mandate seat belts? You’re wrong about Covid. A quarter of a million people are dead from it WITH all the precautions people like you call draconian. We’re all going through something hard together and we all have to deal with it together. I’m sorry you can’t grasp anything being communal.
You hear that, everybody? Lrtexasman has had family with COVID and they’re fine, so please ignore the nearly 300,000 people who have died and go on out there and contract COVID!
Absurdly immature and self-centered attitude you have, dude.
Please go look up pandemic so you actually understand. Oh, and you may or may not be fine. Again, go read facts.
Lrtexasman I’m more of a reader than a poster. But every now and then I come across a comment that shows a level of stupidity that I honestly didn’t know existed. You just single handedly reset the dumbass scale! If I didn’t just this second come to the realization that I may be speaking to a special person I would of had so much more for you. But hey little skippy, you go get em.
I avoid people like lrtexasman like the plague. Since he clearly doesn’t.
Isn’t it the Broncos own fault because they didn’t wear masks!!?? I smell
forfeit in the air…..
GoLandCrabs It does add extra incentive to be very careful as a player though. If you slip up at some point and get infected or just don’t take it seriously, your teammates are left in a possibly bad spot having to play that game without you and maybe others too.
Quick, somebody get John Elway to watch Air Bud: Golden Receiver.
Jay Cutler to the rescue.
Kaepernick is hovering over his phone right now! DON’T DO IT!
You are probably being sarcastic but any free agent signings have to be quarantined for at least a week. Something like 10 days. So broncos have to use someone on their roster or practice squad to play qb
In all fairness, the Broncos haven’t really had a QB all year…. New Orleans is starting a TE at QB….
Does it really matter?
They should kneel down on every down including fourth, not even line up in defense, lose by a zillion by making the game a farce. The NFL ought not to want that abd should move heaven and earth to reschedule the game
How could the NFL reschedule the game if it’s already being played as you described?
Yeah, that’d go over really well with the players. And certainly the NFL wouldn’t discipline everyone involved in the decision.
So we’re going to get an entire game’s worth of wildcat formations, and probably 6 or 7 fumbles on failed snaps, handoffs or pitches because not 1 qb is eligible to play.
Should be fun.
Do you think they’ll go under center at all? I would not. I imagine they’ll run shotgun/pistol all game, heavy on draw plays, option/designed QB runs. Hopefully we’ll get to see a lot of trick plays.
I’d guess shotgun all day, but there’s still the matter of the snap, timing, and the “qb” trying to decipher what the defense is going to do while awaiting the snap. Could cause just enough of a distraction for him to not have his eyes or hands ready when the ball is snapped .
What is really strange to me is they had a coach (or trainer ot some non-player) acting as qb in practice..i would think they’d want whoever they plan to actually use in the game to get as many reps as possible.
drama!
It’s getting ridiculous, in all honesty they need to take break and let people get healthy. Yeah majority of players have little risk involved with getting the virus but when teams can’t even field a roster it’s time to rethink the choice to just keep pressing on.
I do not understand why they can’t back their game up to Monday or Tuesday. The Broncos have been bounced around for other teams, yet when they have an issue they can’t be helped,
What did you expect? All of Colorado’s relationships are a little Rocky.
It wouldn’t matter due to the mandatory quarantine period. The QBs still wouldn’t be able to play and anyone introduced to the team now would have to quarantine as well. They are running out of times to reschedule games, so they’re forcing this one to be played as is.
The Brincos should give Tom Matte a call.
*Broncos
“Driskel’s Thursday positive test coincided with his three non-infected teammates not wearing masks, Schefter adds (on Twitter). It is not known how long the trio went without masks, but it was evidently long enough for the NFL to sideline an entire team’s QB room.”
Nice work everybody. Well done.
Should teams start intentionally doing split squad practices just to eliminate some close contacts? Do teams bypass all in-person meeting just to be safe? Do you have to enact Lone Survivor protocols to ensure at least one guy is left?
Oh, they could have just worn a small piece of fabric on their face and been fine? Seems like now would be a good time to man up and just start wearing the damn things!!
In California I don’t see anyone out in public without a mask and yet we are having the biggest spike of infections of the whole pandemic. Masks aren’t the end all, be all, that the media would have you believe. Real world evidence would suggest otherwise.
I agree that masks are not foolproof. However, the NFL policy says you can’t play if you test positive or are in close contact without a mask on. If any of those guys had masks on and continued to have negative tests through this morning, they’d be playing. For any NFL player, you just have to make it a thing now unless you are engaged in the game or drills.
A lot of handoffs and a lot of sacks and quick passes. Going to be ugly. Guessing an interception or three. So if the starter is awful, what then? Does he at the whole game?
*does he start th whole game?
Remember at the beginning of the year when Broncos fans actually thought they had a good quarterback? There were fans that thought Lock was as good as Mahomes…
I picked up the NO defense one week after playing Taysom Hill at TE.
Freedom isn’t free, remember?
If masks were too inconvenient or oppressive, enjoy playing with no quarterbacks.
No bailouts for the Broncos.
NFL hasn’t been great with enforcing protocols at the team level just like the country hasn’t been good and the state and local level. Not shocked. Problem is they are forcing guys into a potentially unsafe situation if they allow the QBs to play – what happens if they get the opposing team sick and it wipes out more key players? NFL can certainly do a better job at scheduling games though. They didn’t really build in a plan for multiple hiccups. But there are terrible games every week, used to be the Thursday games only. People still watch. They’ll push thru and collect that $$ regardless.
A position group being unavailable should lead to a rescheduling.
While I can understand people stating the game should be postponed, the Bronco QBs did this to themselves by not following NFL protocols because they didn’t wear masks. You can bet there will be fines for this, which tbh should happen. They should be lucky the game wasn’t forfeited, not like they were going to win anyway though