Bill Cowher on having COVID-19, his HOF delay and if the NFL can play in 2020

Bill Cowher and his wife, Veronica, knew something was wrong when they could not smell the lilies.

Cowher bought them to freshen up their Manhattan condo. He blamed the florist.

“I said, ‘What a bad bunch of lilies. I’m never going back to that florist again,’” the Hall of Famer and former Steelers coach said. “And my wife made this stir fry, and I said, ‘Did you forget to put the ginger in there?’ She said, ‘I put a bunch of ginger in there.’ I said, ‘I can’t taste it.’”

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It was the middle of March and they began putting together the evidence. They had just returned from Honolulu on an aborted trip to Tokyo to see their daughter Lindsay and her husband, Ryan Kelly, a former NBA player who plays in Japan’s B.League. That league paused early in March when the coronavirus began to spread, so Lindsay flew to Honolulu to visit her parents.

After a few days, the Cowhers flew home on March 12 through Newark Liberty International Airport. They went to dinner a few times in Manhattan restaurants before things shut down March 20 because of the virus. Then, Cowher and his wife, a singer-songwriter who goes by the stage name V, began experiencing different symptoms: shaky joints, a slight fever for Cowher and a dry cough for his wife, and then an inability to smell the lilies or taste the ginger.

They had caught COVID-19.

“I think I got it in New York and all the traveling, people coming into Newark airport at the same time,’’ said Cowher, 63. “That’s when the virus came from Europe and there was no shutdown. We were out in New York that weekend as well in a few restaurants. Who knows? There were people in Honolulu coming from China and in Newark they were coming from Europe.”

They’ll never know for sure. They weren’t tested when they had the symptoms, but Cowher and his wife tested positive for antibodies in April. Lindsay and her husband, who remained in Tokyo another month, tested negative but still quarantined at their home in North Carolina. Cowher believes they might have had it because they were “under the weather” for a time.

Nevertheless, all are OK, and Cowher and his wife recently spent time at their second home in Bald Head Island, N.C. They stayed 13 weeks in New York after their trip from Hawaii and as they return to their New York condo, they must quarantine for two additional weeks because Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has ordered those arriving from certain states — North Carolina being one of them — to do so.

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It’s all good, Cowher believes, and that includes the one-year delay of his induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. The ceremony was supposed to take place Aug. 8 in Canton, Ohio. He and the rest of the expanded 2020 class will be inducted on Aug. 7, 2021, a day before the Class of 2021’s enshrinement. The postponed Hall of Fame Game between the Steelers and Cowboys will take place Aug. 6, 2021.

“I’m really kind of relieved,” Cowher said of the postponement. “As much as you want to be reflective and talk about the people who were so instrumental in your life, now is not the time, not just with COVID(-19) but with the social justice issues. These are very transparent times and it’s so fluid. The Hall of Fame needs to be reflective. I’m glad it’s still going to be Dallas and Pittsburgh playing, which is great. I think right now it’s just hard to really think about anything celebratory when the country is in the state it is.”

That includes playing football. Cowher, who enters his 14th season as a studio analyst for “The NFL Today” on CBS, is not sure when or if any NFL games will be played this fall.

“I mean, there’s so much anxiety and worry about what’s next, to do the right thing because it varies from state to state,’’ Cowher said. “Testing will be everything, making sure the fans feel comfortable and safe; more importantly, the players. Even if it doesn’t involve fans, maybe what we can do is be able to still see it on TV. But testing will come down to being everything as it comes to playing a season this year.”

Cowher could not say what that might involve, but whatever it is, conditions have to be equitable for every team. Can the league pull it off?

“I don’t know,” Cowher said. “No. 1, the players have to feel comfortable with whatever they come up with from a testing standpoint, from a protocol standpoint. I totally understand the reluctance. Even though they say young people aren’t getting it, you also have people who have asthma, people who have underlying conditions in their families — they’re going back to their homes with parents who may now be elderly. It’s not like you can isolate yourself from everybody, particularly during a season that’s five months long. …

“I still think we have a long way to go. It’s going to come down to the league and the NFLPA feeling comfortable moving forward, and even within that, if they come up with a set of guidelines, and now a player who doesn’t feel comfortable, he may not want to be part of it. It affects people differently not only from a physical standpoint but from a mental standpoint. … I think we have to respect that.”

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And what, for example, if on the day before a game, Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger tests positive for COVID-19? What about teammates he might have come into contact with during the week? What if all three quarterbacks test positive?

“Again, if somebody tests positive, who’s to say another player says, ‘I don’t want to go out there and play because, you know what, I don’t want to subject myself to it,’” Cowher said. “What do you say to that player, that you have to go out there and play?

“It’s going to come down to a set of guidelines that are fair to everyone and there’s going to have to be flexibility within that. Between now and then, what happens with these other pro leagues, seeing how they handle it, will be a little bit of litmus test for the NFL to see how they can make adjustments. The timing for the NFL … you’re able to see other professional leagues, other professional athletes, start back up and see how they are handling testing and some of the protocols that are being set.

“They can learn from it. To Roger (Goodell)’s credit, they let the draft go through. The biggest thing is as long as the same guidelines exist for everybody. That’s the biggest other concern you have right now. All the different states vary with what they allow people to do. You have to have something that’s consistent for everybody if you really want to start this league back up. However that is structured, you have to be consistent team to team.”

If that happens, Cowher will spend another season analyzing games in “The NFL Today” studio. Then, as he begins his 15th season at CBS, he’ll finally be enshrined in Canton, along with two former Steelers safeties, Troy Polamalu and Donnie Shell.

With everything that’s happened, it will be worth the wait, Cowher said.

“It’s great,” he said. “Now we all have a chance to focus on trying to get back to some degree of normality and just doing the right thing and being patient in doing it and not try to force something.”

(Photo: Aaron M. Sprecher / Associated Press)

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