Five Los Angeles Rams players missed the Cardinals game on Monday due to COVID-19. Now Odell Beckham Jr., the team’s wide receiver, has also joined the NFL’s COVID list together with a few more of his teammates. Worst of all, there might be more Rams players ending up on the dreaded NFL list pretty soon too.
13 Rams Players on NFL’s COVID List and Counting
Odell joins a growing list of Rams players who are not available to coach Sean McVay due to COVID-19. On Monday, that list included Jalen Ramsey, Tyler Higbee, Darrell Henderson, Donte Deayon, and Rob Havenstein. These were the players deemed unavailable for the Cardinals game.
On Tuesday, nine more players, including Odell Beckham Jr. joined that list. That means the Rams are now also without tight end Brycen Hopkins, defensive linemen Sebastian Joseph-Day and Jonay Williams. They cannot count on offensive tackle Alaric Jackson too.
The list also includes four Rams defensive backs: Juju Hughes, Terrell Burgess, Tyler Hall, and Jordan Fuller. That brought the total to 14 players on Tuesday. However, because it turned out Tyler Higbee tested false positive, the tight end was removed from the list. So, right now there are 13 players that coach McVay cannot count on.
Rams’ Facility Closed
Because there are that many players that are unavailable for selection due to COVID-19, Sean McVay informed reporters the Rams had closed their facility early on Tuesday morning and that it would stay closed at least until Wednesday.
The Rams coach also said they were operating remotely and with intensive protocols in place. However, he also confirmed what Rams’ fans already suspected – there would probably be more players affected by COVID soon.
27 NFL Teams Have Players on the COVID List
And the Rams are not the only team to be dealing with a serious COVID outbreak. According to ESPN’s Adam Schefter, 37 players returned positive results on Monday and 25 more on Tuesday. Of the 32 teams competing in the NFL, 27 had players on the reserve/COVID list by Tuesday afternoon.
For a player to be included in the reserve/COVID list, he must test positive or be a close contact to a person that did. That’s why it is not clear if the players the Rams and other NFL teams are missing are on the list because they have the virus or because they were deemed a close contact. It is also not confirmed that this latest outbreak is due to the new Omicron variant of the virus.
