It’s a surprising Monday Night Football game for the New England Patriots.

Should it be?

COVID-19 will not go away, and sports continues to push on, for better or worse.

The NFL moved Sunday’s previously scheduled Kansas City Chiefs-Patriots game, which probably would have sent ratings through the roof, to tonight.

It won’t grab the same ratings, because it will most likely be Brian Hoyer at the controls for the Patriots, rather than Cam Newton, who tested positive earlier in the weekend for the virus.

Newton is reportedly asymptomatic; he gave everyone a shout out on Instagram on Sunday.

“I will never question God’s reasoning,” he wrote. “Just will always respond with ‘Yes Lord.;!!

“I appreciate all the love, support and well wishes!! I will take this time to get healthy and self reflect on the other amazing things I should be grateful for.”

That’s a great outlook, but of course speculation will lead to how it happened because of fear it could be just the tip of the iceberg. So far, so good.

The last thing the NFL needs is another Tennessee Titans, as the count on Sunday reportedly was up to 20. Somthing clearly went wrong there.

The NFL is intent on trying to get every game in. It also seems intent on keeping the Super Bowl as scheduled in Tampa on Feb. 7.

But really, it won’t be a normal Super Bowl. The country’s complete inability to get a handle on this health crisis will likely continue into the winter and completely limit the crowd, the corporate involvement, etc. Anything resembling normal is a pipedream.

What the NFL should have done is add a Week 18 and push the game to Feb. 14 or 21. That extra week could be used for all the postponed games, rather than switch this game to this day or week or that game to that day or week.

The Chiefs lose an extra day of rest as they now have three games in 10 days. The Patriots lose the day this week.

And they won’t have their best quarterback going against Patrick Mahomes. Oh well.

But that’s the deal. The last thing the NFL needs is to have any further teams stuck in COVID Captivity. Who knows when Tennessee will be able to play again; it’s amazing the Minnesota Vikings, their last opponent, have been coming up clean.

It would have been tough emotionally for the players, and through the NFLPA they would have never gone for it, but the best way for the NFL to get through the season nearly unscathed the way the NBA and NHL have done in their bubbles would be to have the players living in hotels in their home cities. But it doesn’t seem like a sacrifice they would have gone for.

They may do it for the playoffs, the way baseball is. And baseball, with no regular season bubble (not practical) had its problems.

Look, we here in the Nashua area have our own problems, right? Merrimack’s outbreak, which has shut down football as well as cross country for who knows how long. Bishop Guertin field hockey had its issue and came out the other side and has played one game this past Saturday and are slated to face Nashua North today.

And the Cards faced Merrimack in their football opener, but were OK to play Saturday night, although Sabers coach Robin Bowkett said there was some question late in the week.

“A little bit on Friday,but I wasn’t going to relay that to the players,” he said, “unless it was going to really come to fruition.”

The theme: Nothing is taken for granted. The local coaches have been great about emphasizing that theme.

“We are so grateful that we’re playing football,” Bowkett said, “and these kids are enjoying every minute of it.”

Both teams on Sunday reportedly tested clean, so we will all enjoy seeing the Patriots tonight, for however minutes we can. That good feeling ends when we see Hoyer throw his first interception.

Either way, the feeling is the games must go on if at all possible as a way of life going on, while we all try to stay safe.

Tom King can be reached at tking@nashuatelegraph.com, or on twitter @Telegraph _TomK.

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