The San Francisco 49ers were left homeless after Santa Clara County no longer deemed contact sports safe or permissible. They will play their next two home games in Arizona.

Then the Denver Broncos were forced to play Sunday without a quarterback after their starter and backups were sidelined by Covid-19 or contact tracing. The first and second quarterbacks to take snaps for the Broncos were technically running backs. The third was a wide receiver named Kendall Hinton who had never played an NFL game but played some quarterback in college. He would complete more passes to the other team than to his own teammates.

The threadbare college football season also threatened to unravel as more than a dozen games were postponed or canceled over the weekend. Ohio State, No. 3 in the AP poll, could miss the College Football Playoff because it can’t get enough games in. And when Alabama destroyed Auburn, coach Nick Saban was screaming at his television from home: He tested positive last week.

The start of the college basketball season was no smoother.