Report: Patriots-Chiefs will not be played on Sunday

[KC Wolf]

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With Patriots quarterback Cam Newton testing positive for COVID-19, the Patriots need to watch and wait for additional positive tests. Meanwhile, they’re due to play the Chiefs on Sunday.

According to Field Yates of ESPN.com, the current “expectation” is that the Patriots-Chiefs game won’t be played on Sunday as scheduled.

NFL Media suggests that the game could be played Monday. However, if Sunday doesn’t work, Monday likely doesn’t work either. Given the incubation period, the Patriots need enough time to see whether anyone Newton has been in contact with generates a positive test result. The outbreak donut hole emerges if a player begins shedding virus during the 24-hour window between the collection of consecutive off-site PCR samples, one day apart.

If the game can’t be played tomorrow, it likely can’t be played on Monday or Tuesday. Unlike Steelers-Titans, the schedule provides no simple shuffling of bye weeks and whatnot that would allow the game to be played between Week Five and Week 17.

Which raises the possibility — before the first NFL Sunday in October — that the playoffs are bumped back by a week or two for the playing of games in what would be a Week 18 or Week 19.

The next step becomes cancelling games altogether, setting the stage for teams making the playoffs or missing the playoffs based on the fact that they didn’t get a chance to win, or to lose, a sixteenth game.