Good news, Browns: Your game on Sunday night against the Steelers is still on. Bad news, Browns: Your game on Sunday night against the Steelers is still on.
According to the NFL, the playoff game between Cleveland and Pittsburgh continues to be on track for Sunday night.
It was learned overnight that the Browns had no new positives arising from off-site PCR testing of samples collected on Friday morning. The on-site PCR testing on Friday generated no positives, which allowed the Browns to practice on Friday afternoon, for the first time this week.
Another round of off-site and on-site PCR testing will occur on Saturday. The Browns are scheduled to travel to Pittsburgh later today.
“Medical personnel are comfortable that they have an understanding of where the transmission had been coming from and will continue to monitor,” the league said in an email to PFT. “They recommended moving forward as scheduled with the team flying out tonight pending results from the Mesa tests. The team will take Mesa tests again tomorrow similar to the routine that took place before last week’s game.”
If there are additional positives, medical personnel will evaluate, conduct contact tracing, and make the appropriate decisions at that time.
This is great news for the Browns, the Steelers, and the league. With the league acknowledging recent indications of viral spread within the team (as opposed to infections resulting from exposure in the community), a nagging concern has remained that the game could not be safely played on Sunday night. And that would have created a huge scheduling mess for the league.
It’s still a mess for the Browns. They won’t have coach Kevin Stefanski on Sunday night; he tested positive earlier this week. With no head coach and limited practice time, it’s amazing the spread is still only six points.