A Chiefs lineman opted out of the NFL season to treat COVID-19 patients in Canada. Now his team's going to the Super Bowl.

• Kansas City Chiefs offensive lineman Laurent Duvernay-Tardif won't be at the Super Bowl.
• He opted out of the 2020 season to care for long-term-care patients during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Duvernay-Tardif is the first active NFL player to earn a doctorate in medicine.

The Kansas City Chiefs are returning to their second consecutive Super Bowl this Sunday, but offensive lineman Laurent Duvernay-Tardif won't be there to block for quarterback Patrick Mahomes as he was last year.

Instead he'll be in Montreal, treating patients at a long-term-care center while working on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Duvernay-Tardif, the NFL's only active player to earn a doctorate in medicine, started working at the long-term patient-care facility in April, nearly 12 weeks after his team won the Super Bowl and as COVID-19 started to surge across the US and Canada.

With no end to the virus in sight, Duvernay-Tardif traded his Chiefs jersey for medical scrubs for the 2020 NFL season.

"Winning the Super Bowl for me last year was the ultimate accomplishment, the ultimate team accomplishment," Duvernay-Tardif told Insider. "It was insane, the energy and the feeling, but also I feel like it's the last time we were able to really connect with each other without having to think too much or care too much about masks and social distancing ... It' s hard to even think that we could organize something like now, you know?"

Duvernay-Tardif was the first NFL player to opt out of the 2020 season because of the pandemic

The 29-year-old, who finished his doctorate at McGill University in his NFL off-seasons, can't yet work as a physician because he hasn't completed a residency, but when the Canadian government asked anyone with medical training to help as patient-care employees at long-term-care facilities during the pandemic, he jumped at the chance.

And as the pandemic persisted, Duvernay-Tardif was the first of 69 players to opt out of the 2020 season.

"That was a tough decision, you know? You're just coming off of the Super Bowl, you feel great and you have a chance of winning another one. And you sit out the year. It was really difficult for me," he told Insider. "When I dropped out I was never trying to say that sports shouldn't be happening. It was really a personal decision with all my background I felt I was able to provide here."

So for the 2020 season, instead of taking the field at Arrowhead Stadium with his teammates, Duvernay-Tardif worked at the long-term-care facility outside Montreal three days a week, and spent his free time studying for his doctorate in public health, taking online classes through Harvard's T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

And while he plans to return to the NFL next season, Duvernay-Tardif said working at the long-term-care facility would make him a better doctor in the future.

He said that the pandemic required an ability to "constantly adapt" to new protocols and that safety measures and spending time in a long-term-care facility had taught him more about compassion and patient interaction.

"At some point I realized that those patients are probably not going to go back home. It's not like working in an emergency department where everybody gets a cure and it's happy stories most of the time," he said, adding: "It's the difference between treating and caring for somebody. There's that human connection and interaction that's so crucial."

Duvernay-Tardif says he'll be rooting for the Chiefs from afar

Football is also still on his mind - Duvernay-Tardif has maintained his workouts, taken part in virtual events for his foundation, and watched his team from afar.

"The amount of sacrifices and effort and focus you've got to put in throughout a season, and heading into the season this year, people were saying like: 'Oh the Chiefs are looking good. They're going to go down and win again.' But it's one thing to say it but to actually do it … I'm really proud of the guys, and I'm rooting for them big time," he told Insider.

But Duvernay-Tardif, who also recently teamed up with P&G's Microban 24 to honor sanitation workers at Arrowhead Stadium ahead of the Super Bowl, told Insider he'd miss playing the big game this year.

"I had two great options, but I just felt like because I'm going to be working in the medical community for the rest of my life, I just had to err on the side of caution because there's so many things we don't know yet about the virus that it was safer for me to stay here," he said. "I can live with the consequences of my decision, and 10 years from now I can look myself in the mirror and say that I followed the principle of my values."

And while he can't be at the game in person, Duvernay-Tardif does have a pick for Sunday night's winner.

"Chiefs!" he said.