Giants safety Logan Ryan tested positive for COVID-19 and is in danger of missing the one game this season when his skill set is most valuable.
Ryan did not practice Friday and was headed for the reserve list after his pre-practice rapid-test came back positive, prompting a higher-accuracy PCR test to determine if there is an outside chance he can play Monday against Tom Brady and the Buccaneers’ third-ranked scoring offense.
“His [competitive] juices were going this week, for sure,” said safety Julian Love, Ryan’s likely replacement in the starting lineup. “It’s tough. You want to have all your tools available and ready versus a team like this. It’s definitely a blow, but we’ve got some resilient guys who are going to spend some extra time like we did after practice just to get things sharpened up.”
Ryan reported close contact with an infected person away from the team, so his Thursday included a negative rapid-test result, according to the Giants, before virtual participation in meetings, practicing outdoors and speaking with reporters.
Vaccinated players like Ryan only are required to test once per week (usually Monday), but “it was something that drew an alarm to get him tested beyond just once this week,” head coach Joe Judge said. Two weeks ago, the Giants had a string of false-positives that ultimately kept Saquon Barkley and Xavier McKinney out of practice mixed in with positives for Gary Brightwell and running backs coach Burton Burns.
“I would not say this is a false positive, at this time, like we had,” Judge said.
Ryan’s communication and versatility play an integral role in helping the Giants disguise coverages in the secondary. He and Brady are former teammates, and Ryan, playing for the Titans in a playoff game, famously intercepted Brady’s final pass thrown for the Patriots.
“I think it’s the greatest challenge in football playing [against] him, and it’s a lot of fun,” Ryan said Thursday. “I love to play the chess match against him, and that’s why I’m here — to help us have a good chess game.”
McKinney is one of several unvaccinated players in the secondary, but Judge, after reviewing contact tracing, was not concerned the Giants could lose others for the game under the NFL’s close-contact rules. Ryan leads the team with 72 tackles and two forced fumbles.
“Out of precaution for all those players that are unvaccinated, we had a lot of them Zoom in [Friday] to thin out the rooms and make sure that they weren’t exposed to being close contacts,” Judge said. “The way we set up the rooms in the bubble, they’re extremely spread out, anyway. We’re very specific about where certain players have to sit to make sure they’re not close contacts with other people — kind of keep them protected.”
An asymptomatic vaccinated player can return with two negative tests in a 24-hour span. But if Ryan is indeed positive then he could be forced into a 10-day quarantine, which also would put him in jeopardy of missing the Nov. 28 game against the Eagles.
“First and foremost, you want to wish safety on him and everyone he is around,” Love said after talking with Ryan. “He said he feels fine and he got all his extra workouts in. I’m sure he is going to have a Zoom call scheduled with us later just to recap what he sees on film because that’s the type of leader he is. He’s really in it with us no matter what.”