Steelers-Titans Game Postponed - What's Next?

And it just happens to involve the Pittsburgh Steelers.

On Tuesday multiple sources reported that the Tennessee Titans had three members of the team and five personnel members test positive for COVID-19. 

Following this announcement the NFL entered "play it by ear" mode, putting on a full court press in attempts to quarantine the individuals who were infected and to try and play the game Monday or Tuesday of next week.

Today it was reported that another Titans player and personnel member tested positive, making the risk far too great to take the field in the next handful of days.

So what's the next step? 

First and foremost I want to be very clear - our thoughts are with those infected and we hope that they have a safe and rapid recovery so that the outbreak can be controlled. We don't want to minimize that.

But make no bones about it - this sucks for the Steelers.

They are rolling at 3-0, and had an ideal bye week sandwich - situated right in between their two big contests at Baltimore and at Dallas. It was also in week eight, a perfect mid-season restart week for everyone to recoup after what will be an emotional and hard hitting contest against the Ravens the week prior.

If the Steelers bye week is utilized to make up the postponement against the Titans, the Steelers will play three consecutive road games.

At Baltimore October 25th.

At Tennessee November 1st.

At Dallas November 8th.

YIKES man.

That could easily undo the hot 3-0 start they are off to. And it's a true murderers row in the middle of the season with no bye week in sight - unless the Steelers were to finish first in the AFC Conference and receive the one bye week awarded to only the top teams in the playoffs in each conference this year.

The other option would be to play during the Titans bye-week in week 7, but that's when the black and gold are scheduled to face the Ravens which would then throw Baltimore into a tizzy as well. 

The last rumor I'm hearing is that the game could be made up at the end of the season, as the NFL contingency plan included this idea at the on-set of schedule planning in the case of pandemic implications.

This would mean the Steelers and Titans, two teams likely jockeying for playoff position in the stacked AFC would essentially have an extra game of bumps and bruises prior to entering the first ever seven-team field.

I think no matter how you slice it this is crappy news for the Steelers.

But I also don't think we've seen the last of this issue - as the schedule has officially entered a place that the NFL hoped it had never seen.

The Steelers will remain undefeated following this weekend.

The Pandemic will not.