As COVID-19 cases across the country and across the NFL continue to surge, the Eagles are remaining proactive.
With just two games left in their push for the playoffs, the Eagles are again ramping up their COVID precautions and will be adding another major one this week:
They’re going to separate their quarterbacks.
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Head coach Nick Sirianni made that announcement on Monday, saying that they are going to be “ultra” safe with their quarterbacks. This means when the Eagles are in the NovaCare Complex, Jalen Hurts, Gardner Minshew and Reid Sinnett will not be in the same room together in an attempt to make sure there’s not an outbreak in the meeting room of the most important position in the sport.
“Yes, the quarterbacks will be in separate rooms,” Sirianni said.
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It makes sense. Just think back to a couple weeks ago when the Eagles faced Washington without their top two quarterbacks. Taylor Heinicke and Kyle Allen were on Washington’s COVID-19 list for that game and Washington was forced to start Garrett Gilbert, who arrived just days earlier.
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For the most part, the Eagles have handled this recent surge fairly well. They have had a few players land on the list — they have four players on the list as of Monday afternoon — but they haven’t had the types of outbreaks we’ve seen in some NFL locker rooms.
Aside from separating their quarterbacks, it sounds like some other changes are coming too.
“We definitely did some different things that weren’t mandated a few weeks ago and we’re going to continue with that,” Sirianni said. “We are talking through it more as a staff today. I talked to a couple other head coaches and tried to figure out what they’re doing. Because we all know if we’re going to need to win this game this week, we’re going to need all hands on deck. So what is the best course of action? And obviously we’re talking to our doctors and our trainers to figure out the best course of attack. We’re going to make some adjustments.”
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After Sunday’s 34-10 win over the Giants, Sirianni gave his players a couple days off, which is giving the Eagles some extra time to figure out how to implement any new precautions before those players are back in the building.
Just a few weeks ago, the Eagles already began this process by masking up regardless of vaccination status and by utilizing larger spaces for meetings. For example, the defensive meeting now takes place in the indoor practice bubble.
None of this means the Eagles won’t experience more players or coaches landing on the COVID list but it’s a proactive attempt to limit it as much as they can. With two games left in the season and with a chance to sneak their way into the playoffs, the margin of error isn’t very large.
That’s why COVID precautions even made an appearance in Sirianni’s postgame speech to his team on Sunday.
“We need everybody in this room,” Sirianni said in a video released by the team. “You’re having the next two days off as you know. We gotta be smart. The COVID thing is real. We know that. So you gotta be smart when you’re going out, wearing a mask, safe distance, be smart. Everybody in this room is so, so important to accomplish what we want to accomplish. And that’s just winning this next game. But we need everybody.”