N.F.L. Week 17 Predictions: Our Picks Against the Spread
The New York Times
Teams get two tools to deal with the coronavirus surge: shorter quarantines for players who test positive and no Thursday night games.
With the league barreling toward the end of the regular season and facing a coronavirus surge that included 90 players testing positive on Monday, the N.F.L. on Tuesday halved the number of days players who test positive have to quarantine.
The decision to reduce their isolation from 10 to five days, regardless of vaccination status, if their symptoms improve, aligned both with new guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and with the postseason pushes of their teams entering Weeks 17 and 18. Unvaccinated players who tested positive, like Carson Wentz of the Indianapolis Colts and Mike Williams of the Los Angeles Chargers, could be cleared to play this week after originally being ruled out.
That should particularly affect the A.F.C., which has seven teams still mathematically alive to contend for the final wild-card spot, and where Williams’s Chargers will host the bubble-clinging Denver Broncos and Wentz’s Colts will try to end the hopes of the Las Vegas Raiders.
