NASHVILLE – For Jeffery Simmons, being sidelined by COVID-19 and having to watch his Tennessee Titans teammates beat the Buffalo Bills without him hurt.
He sat on his couch and tweeted almost a play-by-play description in his desire to get back to work.
“I felt more and more anxious that I really wanted to be on that field, and I was like, ‘This can’t be real that I’m really missing this game,'” said Simmons, who missed only that matchup and returned to work two days after the Titans’ 42-16 win over the Bills on Oct. 13 in Nashville.
The NFL and the players’ union are trying to play this season during the coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 220,000 in the United States, with some survivors left dealing with effects of the illness months after infection: fatigue, headaches, muscle and joint pain, fuzzy thinking and organ dysfunction.
Keeping teams healthy enough for games is why the league and the NFL Players Association have a lengthy list of guidelines, including daily testing, trying to do just that.