If the people running the NFL are who we think they are, with due apologies to Dennis Green, then football absolutely, positively will take flight between the Steelers and Titans this Sunday in Nashville, Tenn., at 1:02 p.m.
That's currently the default plan, anyway, and that's precisely as it should be. Not pushed back to Monday night, as has been discussed at the league level. Definitely not down the road in a bye week.
"We've been given a mandate to prepare as if the game is going to be played and played on time," Mike Tomlin was saying Tuesday evening in his six-hour-delayed weekly press conference. "So that's our mentality."
The context, of course, was three Tennessee players and five other team personnel testing positive for coronavirus, as we'd all learned earlier in the day. In turn, the Titans and the Vikings, their opponent over the weekend in Minneapolis, were told by the league to stay out of their respective practice facilities until Saturday while those undergo deep cleaning and while everyone involved undergoes a few more days of 8-inch Q-tips being rammed up their nostrils.
Sounds bad, huh?
Well, too bad.
At the risk of coming across as callous -- I mean, look, obviously, the well-being of those eight individuals and anyone who came in contact with them will be the top priority regardless -- I can snap off three compelling reasons why this game shouldn't be rescheduled by a single minute:
1. The NFL needs to set a standard.
2. Tough luck for the Titans.
3. Changing isn't fair to the Steelers.
Look, no plan can be set in stone, same as any slice of life amid a global pandemic. But if the league were to get all freaky and panicky over this scenario, the first one of significance in football, by not at least adhering to the default that games should play when they're supposed to be played ... it's opening up all kinds of screwy precedent it can't afford, and that could carry over all the way into the Super Bowl.
This is the NFL's version of the Marlins' mess.
Remember that?
Major League Baseball was the first North American league to return and, like the NFL, it was operating without a bubble. So when the Marlins lost not three players but 17 to coronavirus tests, it wasn't about potentially missing a couple practices but, rather, seven games, nearly an eighth of the shortened season. Soon after, the Cardinals found themselves in a similar situation and needed to be shut down even longer. And all through that, the eulogies for the 2020 season were being written far and wide.
Except that they kept playing. And "lessons were learned from what happened to us," as John Mozeliak, St. Louis' general manager spoke a month ago. And even Rob Manfred, who typically couldn't lead a fish to water, used those early two examples to deliver public challenges to all 30 teams and all players to tighten up, to run around partying the way a few of those Miami morons did, to see that the only way they'd have a season at all -- and thus, you know, get paid -- was if they'd never have another serious episode.
News flash: They didn't. Baseball's playoffs began on this same day and, in fact, the Marlins and Cardinals were full, healthy participants.
My goodness, if Manfred's leadership is the bar, this should be a breeze for Roger Goodell and the NFL's decision-makers, right?
We'll see. This is Goodell's first big test on this front, bigger than the virtual draft, bigger than the training camps. This is a game on his schedule that's, by the way, a pretty big one between two undefeated teams. All eyes are on him.
Ask me, and he should start with a challenge to the Titans to get to work, in whatever form that's possible.
The Titans' practice facility, Saint Thomas Sports Park, isn't available, but I can't see why that'd prevent the team, once players clear the necessary testing, from doing classroom work on the Steelers virtually or, more important, from finding another patch of grass elsewhere in Nashville's metro area, if not Nissan Stadium itself. (And if they weren't already prepared to slide to another facility in this circumstance, I dare say they and all 32 teams should've been.)
We won't know exactly what the Titans will do until Wednesday, when Mike Vrabel has his weekly press conference, but early indications Tuesday were that there won't be any complaining. As Tennessee tight end Jonnu Smith told CBS Sports Radio after the news broke, "That's one thing about being a pro. We've been doing it all offseason with these Zoom meetings, so we're kind of used to the flow of things. It might be a little unorthodox, but we might be playing Sunday, so we have to prepare like we are."
Per other reports out of Nashville, Vrabel's reached out to inform his players that they'll be expected to do whatever's needed, even if that means being limited to a Saturday walk-through for their on-field prep.
Sounds like a healthy attitude.
Would that be unfair to the Titans?
Maybe, but it was their three players -- starting defensive lineman DaQuan Jones, veteran long snapper Beau Brinkley and practice squad tight end Tommy Hudson -- who tested positive, in addition to the five staffers. Determining fault for something like that is as impossible as it is perilous, but, again, it was on their side. In the coronavirus environment, as we've heard for months from the Steelers, Penguins and Pirates, avoiding the virus is part of the game.
Sorry, but it just is. And you'd better believe my stance will be the reverse if and when one of Pittsburgh's three teams takes such a hit.
Funny, but Tomlin, who'd stated passionately before training camps opened that it was imperative that all teams operated on even footing in waiting for state governments to reopen facilities, didn't sound nearly as kumbaya on the subject when it was broached Tuesday.
"I was also very clear that, once we left the station and we got all teams into a training camp-like setting, we as a collective -- meaning the National Football League -- acknowledge that this COVID environment could be challenging to that," he said. "So, we all proceeded with that understanding."
Yep.
The Steelers placed a couple players on the COVID list during training camp -- James Washington and Jaylen Samuels -- but no one since the season started. Maybe they've gotten lucky, but maybe they've also been more diligent, more detailed. Whichever it might be, they've played that part of the game to perfection so far.
So tell me why, in that event, the Steelers should be forced to play Monday night and suddenly cope with a short week of prep for the Eagles the following Sunday?
Or worse, why, in the event of of switching to a bye week -- they'd have to flip Weeks 7 and 8 and their first game against the Ravens -- and suddenly cope with seven of their final 10 games being on the road?
Because the Titans were forced to adjust practices? Or miss one or two?
Uh-uh. No way.
Neither of these moves would be getting made because of health or safety. That's being handled separately and appropriately. This would be about ensuring Vrabel and his staff get some perceived fairness in terms of practice and preparation. And that's not nearly important enough to merit any delay.
Tomlin was asked in the press conference about the Steelers' approach to all this, and his response was as perfect as both teams' 3-0 records: "We're going to trust the medical experts. If they deem it safe for us to proceed, then we're going to go down there with the intention of playing and playing to win."