Raiders HC Jon Gruden discussed having COVID, fined $100,000 for not wearing mask

Levi Damien
·2 min read

After Monday night’s game in Las Vegas, Raiders head coach Jon Gruden was asked about not wearing his mask properly on the sideline. In his response, he let it be known that he had come down with COVID-19 this offseason. Tuesday, he was asked to talk a bit more about it.

“I don’t want to get into it. It wasn’t pleasant,” Gruden said of COVID. “It was reported that I made up that I had the virus and it really ticked me off because I would never do something like that. It was a very serious matter and obviously I’m sensitive about it, but yeah it was a tough ordeal for sure, just like everybody else that’s had it.”

Gruden was ultimately fined by the NFL $100,000 for not wearing his mask and the team was fined an additional $250,000, according to NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero.

Recently the death toll for COVID-19 cases in the US surpassed 200,000 cases. But what doesn’t get discussed much is that even if those who come down with it don’t die from it, there seems to be this misconception that all or most are asymptomatic. Gruden’s case was clearly not one of those.

Many people still suffer from serious symptoms of the disease and long term effects are also still unknown. It’s the reason the NFL is so strict on their protocol. They can’t afford to lose a player or a player’s family member to the disease.

The league also has rules in place just for this season including three-week injured reserve designations, 16-player practice squads, and the ability to make players available from the practice squad without fully activating them should they be inactive for the game. All of these rules are in place in case a player comes down with COVID, both to keep them quarantined from the team and to allow for recovery from whatever symptoms they suffer from.

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