The other night was going to be a big one for Tyler Higbee.
The Rams had just snapped a three-game losing streak, and had a chance in front of them, in Arizona, to turn the NFC West race into a race again. And they were getting that chance on the standalone primetime stage that provides all players. Moreover, Higbee figured into the game plan in a way where one could envision it being 60 minutes of football to remember.
That was right about when everything came undone.
On Saturday, Rob Havenstein, Donte Deayon and Darrell Henderson came up positive for COVID-19. Higbee and Jalen Ramsey were identified as close contacts, with Higbee linked to Havenstein. That meant both guys had to undergo additional testing leading up to the game. Both tested negative on Sunday. Both tested positive on Monday, after the team had traveled to Phoenix for the game.
The Rams scrambled to nail down the results. They tested Higbee and Ramsey again. Ramsey’s positive was confirmed. Higbee’s second test came back negative. They gave Higbee a third test—negative again.
The team called the league on Higbee’s behalf, explaining he’d tested negative all week, had no symptoms and, again, produced two negative tests after a single positive. No dice. The league told the Rams it needed a negative PCR test, which needed to be run by an NFL-approved lab, to clear Higbee. The team offered to put Higbee’s sample on a private jet to get it to an L.A. lab. The league said no, citing competitive balance concerns (maybe because not all teams would throw money around like the Rams could).
Anyway, Higbee didn’t play. The Rams won. The next day, Tuesday, that PCR sample came back negative, proving Higbee’s first Monday test was, in fact, a false positive.
Now, I’d assume this is the place in this story where you ask, The team wound up winning the game, and the league erred on the side of caution, and maybe that can be positioned as an acceptable result. Here’s the problem: Players don’t think that way. They have a small window in their lives to play pro football, and only 17 chances per year (plus playoffs) to do it within that window.
On Monday, one such opportunity was taken from Higbee. He wasn’t happy about it. He shouldn’t be. Mostly because it sure does feel like, by now, we should have a better way to do this.
