If the routine is becoming cumbersome to Bud Dupree, he isn’t saying so publicly.
Each day during the Pittsburgh Steelers season, the 27-year-old outside linebacker leaves his house and heads to UPMC Rooney Sports Complex for practice. At the end of the work day, he returns home.
Aside from a trip to the grocery story, the daily pattern is the same. Such is life for Dupree during the coronavirus pandemic.
Wash, rinse, repeat.
“Other than that, it’s just stay at home and don’t try to do anything extra that you normally do during the season,” Dupree said Monday. “You try to think about your team first.”
By taking that approach and following NFL social distancing protocols, Dupree and his Steelers teammates have avoided the type of covid-19 outbreak that has spread throughout the Tennessee Titans organization and led to the postponement of their Week 4 game.
The number of those infected increased to nine players and nine staff members until testing results Monday all came back negative. It was the first time in nearly a week that Tennessee didn’t have a player or staff member test positive.
The postponement of the Steelers-Titans game until Oct. 25 was the NFL’s first because of a covid-19 outbreak. A second game, involving the Kansas City Chiefs and New England Patriots, was pushed back a day until Monday night after Patriots quarterback Cam Newton tested positive.
The Steelers, meanwhile, haven’t reported a positive test result since the regular season began.
“We can’t put the blame on anything,” Dupree said. “We don’t know how the virus is even spreading right now. There’s a lot that plays into that. It’s not a good situation for the league for the virus to keep popping up and popping up. We have to fight through it and just roll with it.”
The Steelers, off to a 3-0 start for the first time in 10 seasons, returned to practice Monday after having an unexpected three-day break brought on by the postponement. Because of the rescheduling, the Steelers lost their Week 8 bye, which would have come after an AFC North game at Baltimore. Now, the Steelers will play at Tennessee, at Baltimore and at Dallas in successive weeks.
“We knew coming into the season there could be a lot of ups and downs and unexpected things,” cornerback Steve Nelson said. “We embrace those things and take them on as they come and prepare as such.”
The collective bargaining agreement negotiated by the NFL and the players calls for a four-day break during a team’s bye. The Steelers lost a fourth day by holding practice last Thursday. Also, to prevent the spread of coronavirus, players must remain in their team’s city during the bye.
For Steelers players, that meant showing up at their practice facility each day over the weekend for covid-19 testing.
“Nothing you can really do given the circumstances,” Nelson said. “Before, you might go to your offseason home. There’s not really a need to travel. Just show up, take your covid test and go back home.”
Like Dupree, Nelson didn’t seem to be inconvenienced by the NFL’s requirements.
“It’s pretty much the same thing I’ve always done,” he said. “I’m a family guy. I go home and be with my family. That is the easiest way — to stay home from everybody and isolate yourself.”
Aside from being stuck with the tab at the team’s rookie dinner, rookie wide receiver Chase Claypool spent the weekend playing video games. Claypool didn’t say whether the Steelers gathered collectively for the dinner or held it virtually other than to reveal that the amount he ponied up “wasn’t too bad.”
“It’s simple for me, I know my teammates and that’s about it,” he said. “I don’t know many people I could hang out with anyways. I hang out here (at the team complex) or go back home and play games. If we want to hang out, we get on our games together.”
Dupree posted a video to his Instagram page that showed him watching football while surrounded by two 12-packs of a certain beer that contains his first name. The caption read: “When your game get canceled, invite some Buds!”
“Anytime you get a chance to relax is a good time,” Dupree said. “We would typically like to have that bye toward the middle of the season just for our body’s sake. Our bodies aren’t banged up right now. Our legs may be tired, but as far as your body and mental state, we’re still ahead of the curve and ready to go.”
Joe Rutter is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Joe by email at jrutter@triblive.com or via Twitter .
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