The NFL announced on Friday afternoon that, due to the COVID outbreak currently being experienced by the Washington Football Team, the Week 15 matchup between the Football Team and the Philadelphia Eagles is being moved from Sunday at 1pm ET to Tuesday at 7pm ET. Saturday’s matchup between the Cleveland Browns and Las Vegas Raiders and Sunday’s game between the Seattle Seahawks and Los Angeles Rams are also being postponed to Monday and Tuesday, respectively.
This is, to be blunt, complete horseshit.
Back in July, Commissioner Roger Goodell sent all NFL teams a memo saying that teams experiencing a COVID-19 outbreak among unvaccinated players could risk a forget.
The league has also insisted since last season—when it forced the Denver Broncos to play a game with a wide receiver as their starting quarterback—that it will not postpone games for competitive reasons. Apparently, Roger Goodell and the NFL have had a change of heart after reportedly stating all week that postponing games wasn’t even being considered.
Washington has had more than 20 players test positive for COVID-19 this week. The Eagles placed wide receiver Quez Watkins and practice squad running back Jason Huntley on the reserve/COVID-19 list on Monday but have not had any positive tests since. Washington has been meeting virtually for most of the week, and their positive tests have slowed to a trickle over the last two days.
For some reason, though, the NFL is caving to pressure from the “Football Team,” Rams, and Browns to postpone their games for competitive reasons. If these decisions only affected those teams, this would be fine.
But they don’t.
As a result of moving Sunday’s Week 15 matchup to Tuesday, the Eagles will now be forced to prepare for another divisional game in Week 16 on short rest. The Eagles, who only have two positive tests and may be down to zero positive tests heading into the weekend, are unsurprisingly less than thrilled about the NFL’s decision.
And they shouldn’t be. The NFL has shown over the years that they play by their own rules, especially when it comes to powerful owners and their franchises. They continue to refuse to release the results of a sexual misconduct investigation of Washington Football Team owner Dan Snyder and have not commented on multiple reports about Snyder’s attempts to cover up the investigations and intimidate witnesses and victims.
The league didn’t even pressure Washington to change their racist R-words moniker until multiple sponsors threatened to stop doing business with the team. Now, they are backtracking on their previously stated protocols and are postponing games because of competitive disadvantages.
The Philadelphia Eagles are reportedly pissed. And they should be.
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Mike Maher is the editor and publisher of The Birds Blitz and Juiced Ball Era. Follow him on Twitter @mikeMaher and @TheBirdsBlitz and check out his Eagles news archive for all of his latest stories about the Eagles and the NFL.
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