Patriots: How Stephon Gilmore can join Cam Newton and play next week

Here’s how Stephon Gilmore can join Cam Newton with the Patriots this week.

A lot of fans seem to have the tendency to loudly, and ignorantly, wonder why a player can play with the flu, but not COVID-19. They wonder why games are moved, practices cancelled, and players sent home with a disease that doesn’t even show symptoms in everyone it infects. Of course, they don’t take into consideration the known and unknown long-term issues related to COVID-19 — like myocarditis, a condition affecting the heart, which ended Eduardo Rodriguez’s season for the Boston Red Sox. Those thoughts about severity of the pandemic don’t acknowledge how easy it is to spread the disease to someone susceptible to it, like the elderly and those with asthma. Fans, oftentimes, just want star Patriots players like Cam Newton and Stephon Gilmore to go out and play.

This isn’t a minor injury or illness, though. This is a pandemic that has killed more Americans than the Vietnam War, Korean War, American Revolution, War of 1812, Spanish American, and Iraq War combined. An injury isn’t contagious. We have vaccines for the flu, which is naturally less contagious than this.

So, because of the natural devastation of COVID-19, there are protocols in place to deal with positive tests. These include immediately isolating anyone who has tested positive as well as testing every player every day, and the NFL has laid out circumstances for returning to play after a positive test.

Let’s focus on the asymptomatic rules for returning to play, as Newton and Gilmore both presented asymptomatic cases. There are two ways an asymptomatic player can return to play:

1. 10 days have passed since the initial positive test
2. Five days have passed since the initial positive test and the player receives two consecutive negative PCR virus tests at least 24 hours apart within that five-day period

To go along with either one of those conditions being true, the player must also be cleared by the team doctors, and pass a cardiac screening to make sure there are no additional health issues or side effects in play.

All things considered, that shouldn’t be too difficult for Gilmore to meet the same standard Newton already has, garnering his Week 6 clearance. It’s already been a week since Gilmore’s positive test, and for Newton, it’s been over 10 days.

This means that as long as the players have not been dealing with any additional positive tests, they could potentially both be active for the game on Sunday against the Broncos. Gilmore likely only has a little longer to wait.

Gilmore will also need to pass their additional health screenings, but as both players are asymptomatic, issues there are not overly likely.

Hopefully Gilmore will join Newton on the roster shortly, because the Patriots desperately need their leaders on offense and defense.

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