New York City, New York - The 2021 NFL regular season is about to start, and the player’s union is calling for a stricter and more universal Covid-19 testing protocol before things possibly get worse within the league.

Despite an agreement set last week to now have vaccinated players tested weekly instead of bi-weekly, the president of the NFL Players Association (NFLPA) has said that this proposed update simply just won’t do.

Cleveland Browns center and NFLPA President JC Tretter (30) took to the union website to voice his concerns in a column posted earlier this week.

He points to the continuing spread of the Covid-19 Delta variant and how it seems to be running rampant through the league’s unvaccinated and vaccinated players alike, apparently within indoor spaces.

According to Tretter, the original bi-weekly testing protocol was largely thought to be ineffective, as far as the NFLPA was concerned.

The union had previously pushed for a return to daily testing, with the league only compromising to a weekly testing schedule – which hasn’t seemed to make a dent in combating football's viral infections this year.

Players who are vaccinated but tested positive for the virus, like Titans starting quarterback Ryan Tannehill, ended up being part of a double-digit team member outbreak for Tennessee last month.

If vaccinated players had been tested daily, perhaps the Titans wouldn’t have needed 14 team members to quarantine for their second outbreak in less than a year.

Games are hitting their peak, and with the current weekly testing standard, the presence of the virus could appear in the middle of the week after a test. By the time a positive result appears days later, the virus has had time to affect a large amount of players, and take them out for a considerable amount of time.

Heading into the first week of the regular season, other vaccinated but infected players, like Jets wide receiver Jamison Crowder and Chiefs safety Tyrann Mathieu, are still on their teams’ Covid-19 reserve list for having been in "close contact with infected persons." It leaves their availability for this Sunday uncertain.

And Cowboys offensive lineman Zach Martin, who tested positive, didn't even travel with his team for their Thursday night season opener against the Buccaneers, which will likely have a big impact.

Trotter explains that under the current protocol, there could be "four to six days where we don’t know if a vaccinated individual is positive for COVID and shedding virus to those around him."

If the weekly testing continues, a player could, in theory, be held back from at least two games. This could mean a player missing out on part of his salary, the owners losing out on revenue, or the entire team missing out on a playoff spot due to potential game forfeitures or losses.

At this point in time, the NFL claims to have reached a 93% average vaccination rate league-wide, the only response they gave to Tretter’s column thus far.