Stephon Gilmore tested positive for COVID-19 days after playing Chiefs, hugging Patrick Mahomes

New England Patriots cornerback Stephon Gilmore tested positive for COVID-19 hours after he played in a game against the Kansas City Chiefs. 

The NFL is experiencing a COVID crisis, one that could threaten how the rest of this season plays out.

Before last weekend’s games took place, the Tennessee Titans reported multiple positive COVID-10 tests, and the league was forced to postpone its first game due to the virus. Things aren’t getting any better in Tennessee — as two more players tested positive on Wednesday — and they appear to be about to get much worse.

Stephon Gilmore, the New England Patriots All-Pro cornerback, tested positive for COVID-19 on Wednesday making him the second player from his locker room to catch the virus. Cam Newton tested positive on Saturday, which caused the Patriots game against the Kansas City Chiefs to be moved to Monday night.

Gilmore’s positive test came less than 48 hours after he played in that Monday night game in which he was in close quarters with both his own teammates and with members of the Kansas City Chiefs. After the game, Gilmore engaged in that tradition of embracing players in a show of good sportsmanship, including the league’s best player Patrick Mahomes.

If Gilmore tested positive for the virus less than two days after this happened, it’s extremely possible that he was infected at the time and could have passed it on to Mahomes and anyone else he came into close contact with that night and the following day. If Mahomes — the single best and most popular player in the league — contracts COVID and misses games, what will the NFL do? How will this affect his long-term health and career?

Nobody fully understands exactly how this virus works; not scientists and especially not the NFL — a league that took over half a century to realize that repeatedly slamming a human skull might lead to brain damage.

Beyond the Gilmore test, we learned on Wednesday that the reason two more Titans players tested positive might have been because of unauthorized organized workouts, which could lead to a forced forfeit of Sunday’s game against the Bills. Two Raiders players were placed on the COVD-19 reserve list.

The NFL has a serious problem on its hands and one that doesn’t have any easy answers. When first faced with this problem, the league figured it could just move a game or two and everything would be fine. Protocols were set in place that reflected how the NFL works, not the virus which is how we’ve arrived here. Games are in jeopardy but so is the long-term health of every single player in the league.

We all want normalcy, but the NFL is not immune to the issues affecting the country. Much like how COVID has ravaged every other industry, things are about to get much worse for the NFL before they get better.