As professional sports leagues around the world began to cancel their seasons, Jordan Martin and his teammates were called into a team meeting. The former Syracuse defensive back found out one of his Seattle Dragons teammates had tested positive for COVID-19, a respiratory disease caused by the novel coronavirus.
Five games into the inaugural XFL season, Martin and four other former Syracuse football players’ — Jay Bromley, Andrew Tiller, Shamarko Thomas and Eric Dungey — attempts to continue their professional football careers were put on pause when the 2020 XFL season was canceled on March 12.
“I already heard the NBA and hockey and stuff like that were ending, so we were kind of figuring that we were going to be up next,” Martin said.