NFL seemingly whips COVID’s butt, coincidently, just in time for the playoffs

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The headlines in the Washington Post and on the NFL’s own in-house site, NFL.com, were ominous a few weeks ago.

"As NFL playoffs approach, growing coronavirus issues threaten competitive balance," the Post headline warned.

"The task to complete [the] regular season, not to mention the postseason that is to follow, has become daunting in recent weeks as the league deals with a major surge in coronavirus cases attributable to the growing prevalence of the Omicron variant," the article read.

Oooh, scary.

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New England Patriots corner back Jalen Mills (2) during a game between the New England Patriots and the Buffalo Bills on December 26. 2021, at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts. (Fred Kfoury III/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

"The Omicron variant exploded upon the NFL starting on Monday," an NFL.com article on Dec. 20 read, "sending 163 players into quarantine by Saturday."

Yikes!

An NFL source, citing league numbers, told OutKick that 476 players were placed on the COVID-19 reserve list from Dec. 13-27, and that was a concern because a large majority of those players — nearly 80 percent — were vaccinated.

More shocking is how that 476 compared to the 428 players who were placed on the COVID-19 reserve list the entirety of the 2020 season when there was no vaccine, thus not one player was vaccinated.

So the NFL expected bad things just in time for the playoffs, and to brace for the blow, it granted teams in the playoffs unlimited promotions from the practice squad during the 2021 postseason.

Except, the playoffs are here.

And Coronarmegeddon hasn’t manifested.

Twelve teams