How the postponed Broncos game affects Patriots’ schedule

Here’s how the Patriots’ postponed game in Week 5 affects their schedule moving forward.

It expectedly hasn’t taken very long for the NFL’s lack of planning and preparation for COVID-19 safety measures to come back and bite them.

After the Patriots announced their fourth positive test on Sunday, the league was pretty much forced into pushing their matchup against Denver back one week. That decision presented crossover problems with other previously scheduled games, and the NFL responded by reshuffling a total of nine (!) contests.

It’s really unfortunate that other teams who haven’t produced any positive tests and have followed league protocols are being affected by all of this, but that’s simply the reality when you don’t implement a proper contingency plan ahead of time.

In the meantime, however, let’s dive into how the Patriots’ postponed Week 5 tilt impacts their schedule moving forward.

Instead of playing the Broncos on Monday night, the Patriots will serve their bye in Week 5, which honestly isn’t the worst thing in the world as it increases the chances of Cam Newton being cleared to return by the time their facilities reopen.

New England was restricted to virtual meetings on both Wednesday and Thursday after cornerback Stephon Gilmore contracted the virus before returning to the practice field on Friday. As we know, the team was once again forced to close its facility after an undisclosed member of the organization tested positive on Sunday.

Amazingly enough, the Patriots lucked out in all of this as their originally scheduled bye was slated for Week 6, so none of their future matchups have been affected by them not playing this week. The same, however, cannot be said for the rest of the league, which had no other choice but to tinker with some of the Broncos’ upcoming games as they were scheduled to face Miami next week.

That pretty much sums it up, folks. The only thing we can do now is hope that the Patriots’ next batches of tests come back negative and they’re able to get in a handful of practices before (cross your fingers) finally squaring off against Denver on Sunday.

At this point in time, it would irresponsible on our part to make any guarantees as COVID-19’s incubation period is incredibly unpredictable.

NFL moving Patriots-Broncos game to Monday night feels horribly wrong

The NFL is moving the Week 5 matchup between the New England Patriots and Denver Broncos to Monday night due to COVID-19 concerns.