In many ways this week’s National Football League schedule is like the old days; every team but two playing on Sunday and a Monday Night Football game.
In another way, it is like no other.
COVID had their highest day of positive tests on Monday, 96 NFL players testing positive, and the virus and rules around it for NFL teams is changing team balances throughout the league. Last night, the Miami Dolphins faced a quarterback making his first NFL start because the New Orleans Saints lost the two players in front of him to COVID protocol.
Fourth round selection Ian Book out of Notre Dame may have won more games than any other starting quarterback out of the Fighting Irish program, but he was overmatched in his first professional start by the solid Miami Dolphins defense. The visiting Dolphins notched their seventh straight victory while limiting the Saints to a field goal and pinning them with a 20-3 defeat.
The books knew the Saints were in trouble with Book at quarterback, once Taysom Hill and Trevor Siemian were declared out while placed on the reserve COVID-19 list, the point spread shifted six points. The Saints opened a three point favorite and were a three point underdog at kickoff.
In prior seasons, I have always watched dramatic point spread shifts as indicators on what team has a real advantage with available personnel. When the books take a game off the board, and then put it back up with a shift of three points or more, one can be sure that a key player is out for the team that has the spread shifted against them.