The report about Ryquell Armstead hit during a busy Sunday slate of games, so many missed news that the Jaguars running back twice has required hospitalization in his battle with COVID-19.
He reportedly has dealt with significant respiratory issues and will not play this season.
Ravens defensive end Calais Campbell, who played for the Jaguars from 2017-19, has traded text messages with Armstead.
“Yeah, we all knew that was a possibility, statistically speaking. It’s scary,” Campbell said, via Aaron Kasinitz of PennLive.com. “It puts things into perspective. I talked to him, because we’re pretty good friends, too, just through text and stuff, and it sounds like he’s in pretty good spirits and he felt pretty good where he’s at right now. That definitely helped me out a lot, because I was worried about him. You hear the reports. But, man, this is a serious thing we’re dealing with. We’re going through the process and having protocols to try to be as safe as possible. But it really is scary that it can hurt you real serious. You don’t know how many people and when. I try my hardest not to catch [it], and so many guys have around the NFL have. For it to be severe and harmful to one person is too many. But you’ve just got to go through the process. But I just try to follow the protocols and try to be as safe as possible.”