Kovacevic: Titans' response shows why forfeits must be in play

'Ummmm ..."

Mike Vrabel had just been asked on a media call by a Nashville reporter, earlier on this Thursday, what lessons other NFL teams, or even other leagues, could learn from his Titans just having been shut down by a coronavirus outbreak, resulting, of course, in their game with the Steelers this weekend being postponed indefinitely.

First came the aforementioned assessment.

Next came an awkwardly long pause, accompanied by a slight shaking of the head as he appeared to search for an answer.

Then came this: 'I think it's just important that you ... stay together. I think you stay consistent in what the approach is.'

Football, he meant. He was still talking about football.

Watch for yourself:

No, Coach, it's not important that you stay together.

It's important that you stay apart.

Through all 22 minutes, 19 seconds of Vrabel's press conference via Zoom, he never once expressed curiosity, much less regret over how the team he oversees wound up with eight ... no, 10 ... no, wait, now it's 12 people testing positive for COVID-19. He never once referred to this as an outbreak, even though it's almost as widespread as the one that shut down Major League Baseball's Marlins and Cardinals, when those situations were routinely described with that term. He never once mentioned any steps that might be taken by him or the Titans to address this, instead saying they'll just wait on the NFL for further "restrictions" he's anticipating and adding, "We'll do whatever the league tells us."

To underscore ...

He never once accepted a shred of responsibility, for himself or his team.

He never once acknowledged anything more could've been done.

He never once suggested there'll be any form of introspection or investigation to follow up.

And this, my friends, is why forfeits need to start being part of such scenarios.

Look, Vrabel's no epidemiologist. He's a former football player, and he's now a football coach. So I'm not expecting him to unearth his inner Fauci on us. But when the Marlins blew it and had 17 people shut down by the virus, largely because a few players went partying one night in Atlanta, all hell rained down, from Derek Jeter and everyone else. They were embarrassed nationally and, always most important in sports, within their own baseball community. When the Cardinals blew it and had 16 people shut down by the virus, their general manager, John Mozeliak, spoke powerfully with reporters on a near-daily basis about what they could do to avoid a recurrence, for themselves and others.

Vrabel and the Titans?

They're worried, as they've expressed all week, all of them who've piped up publicly, about how this affects their football team.

The closest Vrabel came to any sort of reflection was when asked about signing defensive back Greg Mabin to the practice squad Sept. 21. Mabin tested positive three days later, was placed into protocol, and the Titans played the Vikings three days after that.

"When you try players out, they go through a process of testing and quarantine before you work them out. You decide to sign them or not, and then they're into the testing protocol," Vrabel said. "When Mabin tested positive, we went through all the protocol and he was removed from the facility. When he tested positive, he was removed from the building, he was quarantined ... and those individuals that were close contacts with him, they were also retested and went through their protocols as well as being a close contact."

Right. So everything went swimmingly. Just like when the Titans flew up to Minneapolis after a coach tested positive and was left behind, and that tiny tidbit didn't emerge until days later. Just like when one positive soon became three, became more, and became still a couple more on the very morning Vrabel was still prioritizing team camaraderie.

Football remains sports' uber-macho beast. That's not a surprise.

But that doesn't make this anymore OK than Jon Gruden's abhorrent behavior regarding his and the Raiders' blowing off using masks on the sideline and at a social function, then, in turn, having the league threaten to assess fines or even docking draft picks if they didn't knock it off.

Maybe that'll work. Maybe it won't.

Know what absolutely will?

Yeah, that.

Answer me this: Do the Titans come down with a dozen cases of coronavirus if they know they could have to forfeit games?

OK, maybe that's unfair, so I'll word it differently: Is there a far lesser chance it happens?

Watch that video again up there, and you tell me.

And yet, instead of attaching any semblance of actual accountability to the process, the NFL hemmed and hawed, wasting time wondering how to accommodate the Titans' lost practice time -- oh, no! -- and then, more stunning by far, seriously entertaining last-minute pleas from CBS to move a rescheduled game to Tuesday night so the network could boost the ratings!

This was Roger Goodell's first in-season challenge, his first chance to set firm, repeatable precedent, and all he did was go three-out, then shank the punt. And now, he and the league will have to live with this as a template every time this occurs the rest of the way. They'll do anything and everything to get games played so that the broadcast revenue flows uninterrupted, but they won't weigh the competitive aspect.

By all rights, the Steelers should be 4-0 as I type this, the Titans 3-1.

No hype. No homer-ism. Mark it down: I'll express exactly the same sentiment if/when a Pittsburgh team ever has an outbreak. A forfeit shouldn't be the first recourse, and it arguably shouldn't have been here since it'd never been announced as a possible penalty, but it's got to at least be added to the list.

This isn't baseball, where games can be made up with seven-inning doubleheaders or by seeking out open dots on the next month's schedule. This is football, where there are only 16 games, one bye week and, thus, basically just the one mulligan at hand. Imagine what happens if anything similar happens again to the Steelers or Titans, and it's easy to see what I mean. Adding bye weeks, including at the end, isn't plausible. Adding more mid-week games isn't safe for the players, and I'm talking physically.

The Steelers will be affected by this delay, but I'm not viewing it any more dramatically than Mike Tomlin did in his own media call after practice Thursday, the last one he'll likely conduct until next week.

"I'm disappointed because we were getting ready to play, and we won't get an opportunity to do so," Tomlin said. "But we understand we're in a different environment in 2020, so we're adjusting accordingly. But there's disappointment, no question. We worked extremely hard at the beginning of this week in preparation for what we thought was an opportunity against an undefeated team in their venue. You lean in on those opportunities. We're not getting the opportunity to do that. We're getting a bye week, so we're going to make the best of that."

Bye week?

Oh, right, this is a bye week now. Or, as Cam Heyward sardonically tweeted:

Soon joined by another:

Well, it does complicate things at least a little. The Titans' bye is Week 7. The Steelers and Ravens, who are set to play that week, both have byes in Week 8. They could routinely flip those, and I'm guessing they will.

Regardless, the Steelers are stuck with a Week 4 bye that no one would want, since they'll now play 13 weeks in a row running right into the playoffs. The only remaining chance for a breather would be ... yeah, to take the AFC's very top seed and watch the first round of playoffs, an activity the Chiefs probably won't be sharing with anyone.

Some of that was presented to Tomlin, and he pushed it right back: "We do not care."

He made equally clear -- and eloquently so -- that the Steelers don't need to learn anything from the Titans' outbreak, since they themselves have had zero issues since reporting for training camp and have set their own standard to keep it that way.

"We have made a conscious effort to be forward in our thinking and proactive in terms of our approach, and so that's just simply going to continue. We've continually respected the environment that we're in. We don't need tangible, miserable examples to reinforce that."

Miserable, indeed.