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The news about COVID-19 keeps coming for the Minnesota Vikings, as the team has just announced that they have placed four of their rookies on their reserve/COVID-19 list.
Among the four is the first player the Vikings drafted this past April, wide receiver Justin Jefferson. He is joined by offensive lineman Blake Brandel, safety Brian Cole II, and offensive lineman Tyler Higby.
As Adam Schefter of ESPN points out, this does not mean that the four players listed definitely have COVID-19. It simply means that they may have been exposed to it.
Four Vikings, including their first-round pick, are being placed on the reserve/COVID list. It doesn’t mean they have it; they may have just been exposed to it. They haven’t had any contact with trainer Eric Sugarman, who tested positive over the weekend. No overlap there. pic.twitter.com/iLoyJClyGt
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) July 27, 2020
Schefter also says that none of the four players in question have had any contact with Vikings’ athletic trainer Eric Sugarman, who we informed you tested positive for the virus.
As you can see from the Vikings’ statement that is in Schefter’s tweet above, the reserve/COVID-19 list is for players who either test positive for COVID-19 or who has been quarantined after having been in close contact with an infected person or persons. So, again, we can not simply assume that any or all of the four players that the Vikings have placed on the list have the virus. The statement also says that the club can’t disclose whether a player is in quarantine or is positive for COVID-19, so anything you hear is nothing but speculation unless you hear it from one of these players themselves.
We can probably expect more players to end up on this list in the near term, as the majority of the Vikings’ roster is not required to report to camp until tomorrow.