Dez Bryant suggested he might step away for the rest of the season after getting pulled from warmups from Tuesday's game against the Dallas Cowboys following a positive COVID-19 test.
Despite Bryant's emotional reaction to the situation, Baltimore Ravens coach John Harbaugh said the wideout remains in the team's plans moving forward.
"The COVID is 10 days and that's where we're at with it. I can never speak for another person cause of the Twitter stuff and all that. That's something you'd have to ask him," Harbaugh said Thursday. "I don't have any answers to that, to speak for somebody on all that but that's what we would be planning for certainly. He's certainly an option. He's part of our team, and I was really happy with his progress and how he was practicing.
"Was excited for him to play in the game -- really excited. I saw him before the game and we were both fired up for the game. He was super fired up for the game and excited. So I think that's why emotionally, I don't think it's hard to understand why it would be such a tough thing emotionally, especially where he's at in his career. I think we can all put ourselves in his shoes on that for sure. I'm very sympathetic to that and understanding of it. Ultimately people make decisions for themselves, and that's what they have to do. But from my standpoint, absolutely, the answer would be yes to that."
Bryant was officially placed on the Ravens' reserve/COVID-19 list Thursday.
Earlier in the day, Bryant tweeted that he had received back-to-back negative COVID-19 tests.
NFL chief medical officer Dr. Allen Sills told NFL Network's Judy Battista on Thursday that he could not comment specifically on Bryant's case, but did the league "went through the exact same process in this situation that we go through for every positive test" in regards to the timing of Bryant being pulled from warmups.
"We always monitor test results for a number of days and these test results are not as clear cut as a simple positive or negative," Sills said on NFL Network. "You're always constructing a narrative and looking at how the signal varies. Sometimes you have a very weak signal, and sometimes that signal gets stronger and sometimes gets weaker. It's something that we track on all our positive tests, and it's something we'll pay attention to here."
The 32-year-old receiver has played three games with Baltimore this season, catching four of seven targets for 28 yards in 69 total snaps.
