Patriots relive COVID-19 delays, game-day travel to Kansas City: ‘It was a whirlwind’

Before the Patriots could take on the Chiefs, they faced the consequences of a teammate testing positive for COVID-19 Saturday.

Then, they dealt with scheduling uncertainty all day Sunday.

On Monday morning, the NFL finally confirmed they would kick off at 7:05 p.m. in Kansas City, so the Pats confronted the challenges of game-day travel.

Having been tested several times over the weekend, the Pats took two planes halfway across the country, where they spent only a couple of hours at their team hotel. Next, they bused over to Arrowhead Stadium at around 3:30 p.m. After losing 26-10 to the Chiefs, they detailed their past 60 hours to reporters and prepared to fly home for an expected arrival in New England between 3 and 4 a.m.

Here’s what the Pats had to say about their unprecedented weekend:

Safety Devin McCourty

“I would say it gave me great perspective just with what everyone in our country was going through. I think about people that don’t have the resources and everything we had over those last three days of testing; this test, that test, multiple tests. So many people in different communities just didn’t have that, and as nerve-racking and everything that was going on, I think we still had a sense of security that people didn’t have. We had a peace of mind with everything going on, with all the constant tests and all of that stuff.

“”I think it did make you take a step back and take a minute to think about people in different neighborhoods who didn’t have those resources, hospitals were full. I think that’s what I really thought about with everything going on, how fortunate we were. Obviously a lot gets done to play a football game, and we saw that, and obviously a lot was going through our minds, but I would say everyone did a great job just giving us great resources and information that we needed to come out here and play a football game.”

Cornerback Stephon Gilmore

“It’s just a situation we had to go through. A lot of testing. We had to adjust a lot. Kansas City had to do the same thing. No excuses. At the end of the day we came out and fought as much as we can. We just came up a little short.”

Special teams captain Matthew Slater

“It was unique, I’ll say that. I certainly don’t want to use it as an excuse. Nor does anyone else on this team. First time I’ve done that in 13 years in the National Football League. But look, anytime you get a chance to take the field, they give you an uniform and helmet, you go out there and try to make the best of it. That’s what we tried to do today.

“I certainly hope this is something we don’t have to do again. I know that a lot of us are creatures of habit, and our routines were thrown off. I do not want to use it as an excuse at all. We just didn’t make enough plays today. It was a tough outing for us.”

Quarterback Brian Hoyer

“It was a whirlwind. But that’s just the world we’re living in, in 2020. You just have to make the most of it. It had nothing to do with the bad plays that I had.”

Quarterback Jarrett Stidham

“Obviously a very unique situation starting from Saturday morning. We kind of had to maneuver some things and figure some things out. We played really hard. Some things we can learn from and get better from, and that’s what we’re going to continue to do.”

Running back Damien Harris

“It was a weird situation. It was something that we haven’t had to deal with before. But we knew coming into this season that it was a possibility, so that I think that our job was just to be ready for it. And it happened. And it was what it was. Guys, we were basically just sitting around waiting to hear what was going to happen.”

“We knew at some point we were going to play this game, whether it was today, tomorrow, weeks from now, months from now. We were going to play this game. So we weren’t going to sit here and take a day off and just relax because thee was a situation going on that we couldn’t really control. Coach Bill says it all the time: control what we can control. So that was what we did.”

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/3iA3DZZ