Tracking devices, ‘Ghostbuster packs’ and Plexiglass: How one NFL team fought coronavirus

Nobody acts with intentions of spreading the virus, Parekh has realized, but people default to ingrained actions even when such conduct could lead to transmission. One of her goals is to create an environment that makes people behave safely without thinking about it. It has led Parekh, who graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, to unforeseen places.

“I never thought I would spend as much time talking about urinal partitions as I have,” Parekh said.

The NFL season is in line to start as scheduled Thursday night in Kansas City, Mo., a milestone reached after training camps unfolded amid a pandemic. Faced this summer with a virus the country failed to control, the NFL made it to the cusp of fall with limited infections and zero outbreaks as 32 teams created comprehensive plans and players and staffers followed them with selfless zeal.

The league kept the coronavirus at bay by building a sprawling, intricate human machinery mostly behind the scenes. Armies of team employees — hidden from public view by nature of their work, hidden from one another by masks — have enabled the season. They are equipment crews working extra hours, operations people overhauling facilities, athletic trainers learning new skills. They are the people who made the NFL possible in 2020.

“Is it a pain? Yeah, absolutely,” said Hamzah Ahmad, the Jaguars’ director of football operations. “No one wants to do this. But this is what’s going to be the lifeline of our season.”

The people running infection control protocols have not spiked any footballs in premature celebration. Allen Sills, the NFL’s chief medical officer, uses a sobering reminder to frame the work ahead and how much could change: The coronavirus started its spread in the United States in late February, and so it is nearly the midpoint between then and the scheduled date of the Super Bowl.

“In football terms, I like to say it’s like we scored a touchdown on our first drive,” Sills said. “There’s an awful lot of the game going in front of us, and there’s so many variables we don’t know.”

It may be impossible to measure fully what it took for the NFL to succeed where other sectors of society have failed. An examination of one franchise’s practices, though, illuminates how the NFL arrived at opening night.

The Jaguars’ efforts started in late March, when only essential employees could set foot in TIAA Bank Field and they started ordering Clorox Total 360, electrostatic sprayers and hand sanitizers. They formed an Infection Control Team with representatives from across the organization — medical, operations, legal, security and facilities.

The group met remotely for the first time in early May and has gathered every week. Like everyone else, it started from zero.

“There’s no ‘How Do You Operate During A Pandemic’ manual sitting around anywhere,” Ahmad said.

Opening offices required an overhaul. The Jaguars upgraded their ventilation and filtration systems. They made doors and restroom fixtures touchless. Like so many companies, the Jaguars had recently remodeled their offices to promote collaboration, with few barriers and lots of open space. They ordered partitions — “We’re probably the largest consumer of Plexiglass anywhere now,” Parekh said — for meeting rooms, bathrooms and locker rooms. Before testing, the Jaguars spent more than $1 million on capital projects.

The NFL is full of determined people who pride themselves on intensive workloads, but Parekh stressed to Jaguars employees that they had to change their mentality. Before returning to the office Memorial Day weekend, 75 employees had to pass a quiz, designed by Parekh, to ensure they had read materials on new office guidelines.

“I’m everyone’s least favorite person this year, I’m sure,” Parekh said.

Even as coaches and employees returned, focus remained on preparing the stadium for players. The Jaguars removed every other showerhead in the locker rooms. In early July, a BioReference testing trailer moved in. The cafeteria buffets were replaced by grab-and-go meals. The Jaguars installed about 65 hand-sanitizer stations through their hallways. When big-box stores reopened, Ahmad walked through the aisles and took photos of floor markings and signage for ideas about how to set up the Jaguars’ facility.

Before players returned to the stadium in late July, the members of the response team felt as confident as they could. But they wondered what would come of their work when 80 players arrived to play a contact sport.

“The whole challenge with planning and all these phone calls and Zoom calls is, at 4 o’clock every day since mid-May, you’re like: ‘But they’re going to tackle each other. So what’s the point of doing this?’ ” Ahmad said.

Before players arrived, they had to answer the questionnaire through an app, now down to four questions about whether they felt symptoms or had been in contact with anyone who might be sick. If they answered no to all of the questions, a green check mark appeared. If a player said yes to any of the questions, an alert was sent to Scott Trulock, the director of player health and performance, and Cassie Ettel, the associate athletic trainer.

After players arrived, a thermal camera took their temperature. They flashed their green check at a security guard and, once through the gate, a giant sign instructed players that masks were required from that point on. Players then grabbed a Kinexon device, a tracker worn on a lanyard or around their wrist.

The devices, typically used by teams to measure player movement during practice so coaches can evaluate performance and workload, have played a crucial role. When two people come within six feet of each other, a light flashes. The data serves two purposes. If someone tests positive or shows symptoms, it provides a blueprint for contact tracing and who should be isolated or quarantined. It also showed when players would creep too close together in meetings.

The measures only work, though, if players adhere. When players first arrived, Coach Doug Marrone told them, “We’re only as strong as the guy that’s taking this the least seriously.”

The Jaguars are taking additional precautions. Coaches wear masks, and midway through practice equipment managers strap on what Jimmy Luck, the head equipment manager, calls “Ghostbuster packs” — backpack sprayers filled with disinfectant they use to coat hand shields, step-over pads and tackling dummies. Rather than sharing plastic water bottles, players grab a single serving from a system of coolers. To avoid unintentional sharing, players use towels only once and then throw them in the laundry — and to deal with the additional volume, the trainers help the equipment managers by folding towels.

“Everybody has to do a little bit more,” Luck said. “At first, it seems to be very daunting, like, ‘Oh, my God, we got to do all this.’ But now, at this point, we’ve done it for a few weeks. You just kind of do it. That’s what support staff people do: ‘All right, this is what we got to do. We’ll figure it out and keep going.’ ”

Doing more includes learning multiple responsibilities and taking lead roles on tasks that have nothing to do with their normal jobs. Brian Kensil, typically Jacksonville’s football operations coordinator under Hamzah, now has his entire day centered around the Kinexon trackers. It’s his job to collect them, make sure they’re charged in the morning and ensure every player wears one.

Lori Windisch, typically a facilities project manager, has overseen cleaning and disinfecting the building, making sure the Jaguars maintain a two-week supply. Ettel, the athletic trainer, has managed all of the Jaguars’ testing. Parekh was trained to recognize symptoms of depression and mental health issues so the franchise could detect if an employee needed help.

“Every component of an organization is involved in this process,” Trulock said. “Every group has had to reinvent some of the things they do to manage this. It’s a medical issue, but the solutions involve literally every part of the organization.”

The NFL has been thrilled to the point of surprise by its success in limiting cases and preventing outbreaks. The league and union agreed to maintain daily testing if positive results remain below 5 percent, an indication it was bracing for, if not expecting, results in that range. From Aug. 30 to Sept. 5, the NFL tested 8,349 people with nearly 45,000 tests, and only eight came back positive.

Trulock stressed the importance of remaining vigilant as social behaviors changed with the season. In training camp, even in a typical year, players and coaches spend nearly all of their waking hours hunkered in the facility. While they’ll have more time to travel, those employees who have kids might see them return to school, which presents an opportunity for transmission. Families could travel on their own to road games.

“The whole directive is, we need to get 16 games in,” Ahmad said. “That’s all that matters at this point. … We got practices in. We got workouts in. I don’t want to get complacent.”

That they have made it to the start of the season is an accomplishment but far from an endpoint. This week, the Jaguars are getting ready to play a real game, at home Sunday against the Indianapolis Colts. The Jaguars are one of a few teams that will allow fans for their first game, filling the stadium to roughly 20 percent capacity in a socially distant alignment.

Before the game, a Jaguars player will walk past the temperature scanner, mask pulled over his face, and flash a green check mark at a security guard. The guard will nod and invite him in. He will take another step forward.