Few if any teams in the NFL were hit as hard by the Coronavirus as the New England Patriots last year. While they luckily did not have any serious cases within their organization, their team still was impacted quite a bit.
Not only did a league-high eight of their players decide to opt out before the season — including defensive cornerstones Dont’a Hightower and Patrick Chung — the team also was challenged repeatedly during the years. One of their games had to be rescheduled, while core players such as quarterback Cam Newton or cornerback Stephon spent time on the newly created Covid-19 reserve list.