No NFL players opt out amid relaxed COVID-19 testing protocols

In a response to a surge of players testing positive for COVID-19 over the past eight days, the NFL and NFL Players Association announced over the weekend relaxed testing protocols for fully vaccinated players and staff members. As part of this new approach, players deemed "high-risk" for the coronavirus were given the ability to opt out of the remainder of the campaign so long as they did so by Monday at 2 p.m. ET. 

Per NFL Network's Tom Pelissero, no player took advantage of this option before Monday's deadline. Any player who opted out wouldn't have been paid for games missed, nor would he have received any other stipend or compensation attached to his contract. 

Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk named examples of how a player could be deemed "high-risk," such as if he previously battled cancer, had a heart condition, or had "a high-risk co-habitant that has a confirmed diagnosis" mentioned by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and NFL. 

In a memo shared by the NFL website Saturday, commissioner Roger Goodell wrote that "two-thirds" of personnel who recently tested positive for COVID-19 were "asymptomatic" and that "most of the remaining individuals have only mild symptoms" via cases presumably linked with the Omicron variant. 

Goodell continued: "In many respects, Omicron appears to be a very different illness from the one we first confronted in the spring of 2020."