The Seattle Seahawks Week 15 game against the Los Angeles Rams has been rescheduled due to COVID-19. The game that was originally slated for a 4:25 p.m. eastern start time on FOX has now been moved to a 7:00 p.m. eastern start time on FOX, per Adam Schefter.
The Seattle Seahawks serve as one of three matchups that have been rescheduled. Saturday’s Browns/Raiders game has now been moved to Monday Night and Sunday’s Football Team/Eagles game has been moved to Tuesday night.
In all three cases, it was one team that was significantly impacted by COVID-19. The Rams, Football Team and Browns have been dealing with an outbreak of the virus ever since the beginning of the week. Each of those teams has now had over 20 players designated to the COVID reserve list and, each facility was shut down during the week. Resulting in all team meetings being held virtually.
NFL moves Seahawks and Rams game to Tuesday
This has forced the NFL to enact new COVID-19 protocols for all 32 teams moving forward in an effort to slow down the positive cases. For whatever reason – if I had to guess, I would say the variants – over the last two weeks, we have seen a widespread of positive cases in both the NFL and NBA. The Week 15 rearrangement has caused many fans and players to enter a frenzy. Primarily because back in July the NFL announced that they would not be rescheduling games due to COVID.
"NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero reported Thursday that the NFL sent a memo to its clubs stating that if a game cannot be rescheduled during the 18-week schedule due to a COVID-19 outbreak among unvaccinated players, the team with the outbreak will forfeit and be credited with a loss, per sources informed of the situation."
Just below, you will see tweets from players echoing those sentiments.
PA weak af! https://t.co/K8ZNtAMG17
— Nino (@qdiggs6) December 17, 2021
NFL & Owners told teams before the season no games would be re-scheduled. They reiterated that teams would have to just forfeit the game. Am I lying?🤔 See how fast NFL will switch up to what benefits them & their money. If players only understood this don’t work without them.😎
— Tre Boston (@TreBos10) December 17, 2021
This late in the season, with the Seahawks trying to make a late playoff push, rewarding the Rams (and in essence, this is exactly what the NFL is doing) just isn’t fair. This makes Seattle play on Tuesday and will give them a short week heading into Week 16. With a team that has already been banged up, another short week certainly isn’t going to help. Just this week alone, wide receivers D.K. Metcalf, Freddie Swain and D’Wayne Eskridge were all on the injury report.
The Seattle Seahawks only had two players placed on the COVID-19 reserve list: Tyler Lockett and Alex Collins. If they as a team were able to remain diligent and disciplined, why should they be punished for the Rams inability to do so?
A Tuesday night game doesn’t give the Seahawks much time to game plan for their next opponent. With a win, Seattle will be right back in the playoff race. Five days time to prepare for another opponent is not easy to do, regardless of who the opposing team is.
Rams fans can celebrate the win, but this is ultimately a horrible look for the league. Just another instance that puts an emphasis on their greed over player safety. In July, if you declare that teams will have to forfeit due to an outbreak of COVID in their organization, you should stick to your word. It’s truly an embarrassing look to punish the teams who have been able to set a good culture in place that has kept their players and coaches safe.