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Good news, Browns: your Sunday night game against the Steelers is still going on. Bad news, Browns: your Sunday night game against the Steelers is still going on.
According to the NFL, the playoff game between Cleveland and Pittsburgh remains on track for Sunday night.
It was discovered overnight that the Browns had no positive results from off-site PCR testing of samples collected on Friday morning. The on-site PCR test on Friday did not yield any positive results, which allowed the Browns to practice on Friday afternoon, for the first time this week.
Another round of off-site and on-site PCR testing will take place on Saturday. The Browns are scheduled to travel to Pittsburgh today.
“Medical personnel are comfortable knowing where the transmission was coming from and continuing to monitor,” the league said by email to PFT. “They recommended moving forward as scheduled with the team flying tonight, awaiting the results of Mesa’s tests. The team will perform the Mesa tests again tomorrow, similar to the routine that took place before last week’s game. “
If there are additional positives, the medical team will evaluate, conduct contact tracking and make appropriate decisions at that time.
This is great news for the Browns, Steelers and the league. With the league recognizing recent indications of viral spread within the team (as opposed to infections resulting from exposure in the community), a lingering concern remained that the game could not be played safely on Sunday night. And that would have created a lot of scheduling confusion for the league.
It’s still a mess for the Browns. They won’t have coach Kevin Stefanski on Sunday night; he tested positive earlier this week. Without a head coach and with limited practice time, it’s amazing that the difference is still only six points.