With all the problems surrounding the Ravens vs the Steelers this week, the NFL has no choice but to enforce punishments
With the Steelers’ Thanksgiving game now rescheduled for Tuesday, it is high time the NFL enforces some sort of punishment towards the Ravens for their failure to follow protocol. While it is a last resort option, the issues at hand in this game are deserving of some sort of reprimand. It seems like the proper course of action is for the NFL to either force a forfeit for the Ravens or enact some sort of draft pick loss.
For starters, it was likely inevitable that every team would have a player test positive for COVID. The wide-spreading nature of this disease has made it hard to avoid. The Steelers just had their first player test positive earlier this month, as Vance McDonald had to miss some time due to a positive test. Something like this for any team doesn’t warrant a punishment, as a couple of players catching a virus is inevitable.
The Ravens, like the Titans before them, broke protocol. The Titans were holding practices illegally and as a result, they had a large portion of their team test positive for COVID. While this unfortunately affected the Steelers as well, this was the defining moment of the NFL season. They now had their first case of a team breaking protocol. As a result, they laid out a contingency plan for what would happen if a team did this again.
The Ravens did the same thing
This week, the Ravens players started testing positive at an alarming rate. Suddenly, the story broke that strength and conditioning coach Steve Saunders was not reporting symptoms and was not consistently wearing a mask. He seems to be the reason that the breakout happened, and that was due to him not following the protocol that the NFL set.
Now, as a football fan, the last thing anyone should want is a forfeit. That cheapens the NFL season and gives a group of fans something to complain about. That said, the Steelers shouldn’t play the Ravens on Sunday if the conditions aren’t safe for the players. That means if the game has to get moved into the mid-week, like a Tuesday game, or even gets moved to the end of the season.
Instead, the NFL should take a draft pick from the Ravens
If the NFL doesn’t enforce a forfeit, the Ravens should be fined a draft pick. Again, they broke protocol, and they deserve to be punished for it. The NFL has already taken a sixth-round pick from the Raiders for mask issues on the sideline, so there should be little issue with the league taking a pick away from the Ravens. Considering this was a break of protocol that has resulted in this many positive cases and potential schedule workarounds, this pick should be high.
With a sixth-round pick being taken away for a simple mask violation, the NFL should take away at least a third-round pick from the Ravens for this transgression. While a lot of these actions fall onto the strength and conditioning coach, the Ravens need to be punished for not monitoring him better. A third-round pick seems fair given the severity of this transgression, a third-round pick seems fair.
Again, the Steelers and Ravens should play unless situations really restrict the game. Assuming the game does eventually get played, then the Ravens should be fined a draft pick. It’s an unfortunate situation, but the NFL made their punishments clear after the Titans messed up. A third-round pick seems fair considering the severity of the issues that the Ravens have caused.