What does Matt Stafford’s false-positive COVID-19 test mean for the NFL?
Yahoo Sports' Charles Robinson and Terez Paylor discuss the implications of Lions QB Matt Stafford's false-positive COVID test. Subscribe to the Yahoo Sports NFL Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Video Transcript
[MUSIC PLAYING]
CHARLES ROBINSON: I think the Matt Stafford situation is really interesting because you have a guy who, all of a sudden, tests positive, and it's, like, well, you've been testing negative, and then, boom, you test positive. But then he tests negative again twice. And they're like, oh my gosh, it was a false positive. I think what's crazy about this is you just sit there and you're like, what if this had happened on a Saturday?
TEREZ PAYLOR: [LAUGHS] I know.
CHARLES ROBINSON: And then he turns--
TEREZ PAYLOR: It's gonna cost you. And here's what that lead-- and by the way, his whole family tested negative too.
CHARLES ROBINSON: Yeah.
TEREZ PAYLOR: Like, it was just a false positive--
CHARLES ROBINSON: It was clearly a false positive.
TEREZ PAYLOR: Right. So here's the thing that-- I'm sure at some point I'll write about that. We just have to understand this, because that competitive balance this year is shot. For some teams this is going to be the most unfair season of football ever. Like it-- it's just not going to be fair.
We could get to the playoffs, if we have them. And somebody who's really important might test positive, and a couple of days later or whatever, they find, ah, it was a false positive. Sorry.
But forget any-- the only thing that's fair about this season is that every team's going to get screwed somehow by this virus. That's all. Just get used to that.
But I thought that was a good point. Like, the Stafford thing is scary, you know, and it would have cost them a game, undoubtedly. But here's what else I can promise you, Charles. They won't be the only team that happens to, if that were to happen, OK?
CHARLES ROBINSON: Yeah. Yeah. I don't-- I agree. I don't think this will be the first false positive.
And what-- it's interesting, too, because when I started to talk to people about doing the testing, I kind of freaked out a little bit because there was clearly-- so literally the first person I talked to talked about variance in the testing. And he was, like, you know, the first day I went in, it was like, jam the-- jam the things all the way inside my nose, and my eye-- you know, my eyes are watering and counting to 10 and, like, all these different things, and thinking I'm going to do this every single day, and then talked about going in the next couple of days, and it was simple. Like, it was, like, a boom, boom, like in and out. It was almost non-invasive.
And I thought, oh, they're blowing the testing. Like, they're not doing-- like, the lack of consistency is gonna undermine the testing, which I think is absolutely possible. But actually, when I went and looked it up and I talked to Don about it, it was like there's some different ways to do the nasal swabs that are not all the same. So sometimes someone could use one avenue to do it, and the next day they could use-- do the nasal swabs, but it's a little bit of a different avenue. And it has to do with, kind of, you know, where you put the swab, whether you swirl it around, and all these different things.
And-- but like you said, I mean, there's going to be some situations where someone does the test in maybe what's an inaccurate manner, and it produces a false positive. And some team's gotta go through it, and that won't be fair. But as you said, this is the season where the competitive balance-- there's gonna to be a lot of inequity.
