In addition to the challenge of the opponent on the other side of the field, the Las Vegas Raiders and other NFL teams also face the unique challenge of battling the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic in 2020.
The Raiders haven’t exactly been doing a great job as they have had multiple COVID issues, including being fined for players not wearing masks at Darren Waller’s charity event and most recently Trent Brown and Damon Arnette testing positive.
Because Brown wasn’t wearing his tracking device, the Raiders’ entire offensive line was forced to miss practice last week. While they returned to play the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Week 6, the results were not good as the Raiders were handed a 45-20 loss to fall to 3-3.
After the game, Jon Gruden discussed his team’s ability to follow the NFL’s protocols, via Adam Hill of the Las Vegas Review-Journal:
“I’m really proud of our organization and what we’ve done,” Gruden said Monday. “There’s a lot of things (that) have been written and said about some of the violations that we have committed, but we’re on the cutting edge of beating the virus. What we’ve done as an organization (has been) top notch.”
A few reports indicate the Raiders will be fined once again for their recent actions, but Gruden doesn’t believe that will be the case:
“I don’t know who’s reporting that, and I really don’t know who said that, but I’m not going to react to that,” Gruden said. “I have not heard anything from anybody other than what they have seen us do is extremely positive. We have renovated our facility. We have done everything we can to follow protocol.”
Gruden also reiterated that he feels his team has been following protocols and will continue to do so moving forward:
“We don’t have any issues,” he said. “We had a guy get the virus on the bye week. We had a guy perhaps didn’t use his tracer. We’re not the only team in the league that has had people catch the virus. You can do your research on that and make sure we’re all on the same page.
“Everybody in the country and in the world is dealing with the virus, including the president of the United States. It’s a problem for coaches, you can ask Nick Saban, you can ask a lot of college coaches. We’re doing everything we can to beat the virus.”
The optics of some of the Raiders’ decisions have not been great, but to this point, Brown and Arnette have been their only positive tests this season. Hopefully it remains that way and they get through the year as the Raiders should be in the postseason mix for the first time in a while in 2020.
