While the season on the field did not reach the ultimate heights the team hoped for, their season off the field couldn’t have gone any better when it comes to their managing of COVID-19.
The Seahawks finished the 2020 season without a single player testing positive for the virus during the five-plus months of the season. They had five players land on the reserve/COVID-19 list at various times but none were from positive tests.
“I really don’t have much patience for giving into this thing because it isn’t over,” head coach Pete Carroll said on Monday. “It is hard. It is a challenge. Heck yeah it is, it is for everybody. But we also found that by facing it up and going for it and not backing off the challenge and not succumbing to the nature that ‘oh gosh, it’s so tough’ and weakening, we stayed strong.
“I worry right now as our guys leave that they won’t have the support system around them to keep them strong. Because we figured it out how to deal with it here. It’s just plain diligence. Every frickin’ day, every thing you’re doing. It doesn’t change when you go home. It doesn’t change for our people in our community. That’s the only way you can get this done. We can kick ass on this thing, but you need support, you need help and you need people to rally with. You need theme, you need attitude, you need approach, all that stuff to get it done.”
Wide receiver John Ursua had a false positive in training camp and defensive end Jonathan Bullard was unable to play in Saturday’s playoff loss to the Los Angeles Rams due to a false positive result as well. Defensive tackle Bryan Mone, right tackle Brandon Shell and safety Damarious Randall all three spent multiple days on the reserve list as they were deemed to be high-risk close contacts of individuals that had tested positive. However, none of them returned a positive test and they passed the protocols for re-entry.
Mone was on injured reserve at the time of his move to the reserve list. Shell and Randall missed the 49ers game in Week 17 and Bullard missed the playoff game on Saturday.
The Seahawks had their group of medical technicians raise the 12th Man flag prior to kickoff of Saturday’s game against the Rams.