The Carolina Panthers have placed a second player on the COVID-19 list
The Carolina Panthers have placed offensive lineman Chris Reed on the league’s reserve/COVID-19 list. He becomes the team’s second player on the list.
Reed was in attendance at practice Monday.
Tuesday’s practice was originally scheduled for 11:50 a.m., but was pushed back to 2:15 p.m. so the team could to do additional rapid testing for players and coaches.
“We went ahead and did some additional testing and really just for kind of safety measures before we went out there on the field, after meetings,” Rhule said. “At the point-of-care testing, that gives you the results in approximately 20 minutes. We did our normal testing this morning as we got here and just kind of listened to our doctors and trainers and went out and did a second round of the point-of-care testing.”
Being placed on the reserve/COVID-19 list means a player either tested positive for COVID-19 or was exposed to someone who had the virus. Teams are not allowed to share why a player was placed on the list.
The Panthers placed their first player on the reserve/COVID-19 list Sunday with defensive back Derrek Thomas. Thomas had reverted to the team’s injured reserve list after they had waived him with an injury designation due to a hamstring injury.
Before Sunday, the Panthers were one of a handful of teams that hadn’t put a player on the Reserve/COVID-19 list. There are currently five players on the list, including the two Panthers.
With the season around the corner, having to be without players for a game due to COVID-19 is a concern, but something the Panthers and the NFL are preparing for.
“We have a full roster ... and if something were to happen here moving forward or if something happened today, the NFL, obviously, they gave us less numbers in camp, but more numbers in the season,” Rhule said. “We would just have to count on the guys that we’ve trained, and I think that’s why a lot of our practices you see a lot of reps between the ones and the twos, the threes even, getting reps, knowing that we might have to count some of those guys in a COVID year.”
The league reduced training camp rosters from 90 to 80 players, but expanded practice squads from 10 to 16.
If a player a tests positive and is showing symptoms, at least 10 days must pass since the symptoms first occurred and at least 72 hours must have passed since symptoms last occurred in order for them to return. If the player that tests positive does not have symptoms, he can return either 10 days after the positive test or five days later if the player has since tested negative twice.
There has been increased talk about false negatives throughout the NFL, but at this point, there has been no indication that is the case for the Panthers. Players, coaches and staff all wear location monitoring devices to determine who was in close proximity to anyone else in the building for too long of a period of time.
Earlier Tuesday, the NFL announced that 23,279 tests were administered to 2,747 players from Aug. 21-29. From those tests, there were four new confirmed positive tests among players
Also missing from Panthers practice Tuesday were center Matt Paradis (personal reasons), defensive lineman Zach Kerr (illness), tight end Ian Thomas (hyperextended toe), wide receiver Tommylee Lewis (hamstring) and cornerback Eli Apple (hamstring) did limited work.
Thomas injured his toe at the end of yesterday’s practice.
“(Thomas) should hopefully be back, depending on how his rehab goes, but he should be back here pretty soon,” Rhule said.
This story was originally published September 1, 2020 at 5:02 PM with the headline "The Carolina Panthers have placed a second player on the COVID-19 list."
