News

Ravens receiver says season is over after positive COVID-19 test

by Marina Pitofsky - 12/09/20 10:40 AM ET

Baltimore Ravens wide receiver Dez Bryant announced that he has tested positive for COVID-19 on Tuesday evening, just 30 minutes before kickoff of a game against the Dallas Cowboys.

“Yea I’m going to go ahead and call it a quit for the rest of the season… I can’t deal with this,” he tweeted.

Tell me why they pull me from warming up so I can go get tested… my shit come back positive… I tested positive for Covid WTF

— Dez Bryant (@DezBryant) December 8, 2020

Yea I’m going to go ahead and call it a quit for the rest of the season… I can’t deal with this

— Dez Bryant (@DezBryant) December 8, 2020

The former Cowboys player said he was going to “drink some wine and cope” with the news of his test, before responding to a fan’s tweet that he will be “coming back… I’m being smart.”

I’m about to drink some wine and cope….

— Dez Bryant (@DezBryant) December 8, 2020

Yea I’m coming back… I’m being smart https://t.co/9RjQcahTJs

— Dez Bryant (@DezBryant) December 8, 2020

It was not immediately clear whether Bryant meant that he would return in the current NFL season or next year.

Bryant took a COVID-19 test Tuesday morning that was inconclusive, and a rerun of the test also did not come back with definitive results, ESPN reported. Per NFL protocol, the two inconclusive tests should have been treated as if they were positive.

A source told the outlet that Bryant had already started warming up for the Tuesday game alongside his teammates when the inconclusive test results were returned to league officials.

The wide receiver’s point-of-contact test at the field Tuesday evening was positive. Bryant participated in contact tracing protocols after leaving the field before the game, ESPN reported.

The NFL and the NFL Players Association were reportedly not concerned about players, coaches or other employees coming into close contact with Bryant.

After the Ravens defeated the Cowboys Tuesday evening, quarterback Lamar Jackson said he and his teammates were thinking about Bryant during the game.

“We were looking around for him, then he told us. It was like, we’re just going to have to pull the game for him; we’ve got to win that game for him, because we know how much it meant to him,” Jackson said. “He’s been talking about it for a minute now since he’s been here. So, I don’t like what happened, but it is what it is. We got the victory for him. I’m feeling for him, though, because I know this is a game he wanted to be in.”