For much of the 2021 NFL season, COVID-19 has been a background concern. The Delta wave has crashed over the country and Omicron is well on its way, but most weeks in the NFL you’d hardly know it, given that only a handful of players and coaches would land on the list at a given time.
That’s not to downplay the seriousness of the virus so much as it is to acknowledge that the league has been chugging along with nary an interruption to its sacred schedule. That has changed, however, and the change has been both sudden and dramatic.