I’m not sure if this should go here or in the Pit. I’d like to keep things civil, but if people start venting, I’m hoping it gets moved rather than drawing warnings.
OK, I had no idea that Aaron Rodgers was “vaccine hesitant” (read, COVID anti-vaxxer). But it’s not just that he “did his own research”, but that he lied about his vaccine status to the team. There are all kinds of extra protocols that non-vaccinated players have to follow, and he has been violating those. For example:
Rodgers said he had followed most of the protocols for unvaccinated players, except for wearing a mask during his weekly news conferences. He also attended a Halloween party maskless with other people, another violation of the protocols.
(That’s from the NY Times article, which I’m not going to post because it’s paywalled.)
But that’s not all! He also went on a rant about woke mobs and cancel culture – I have never heard cancel culture and woke mobs associated with the vaccine. What the fuck is he talking about? Is it just his way of deflecting responsibility for his own dishonesty about his vaccine status?
The league is reviewing the Packers’ compliance with vaccine rules – makes sense to me, since Rodgers slipped through the cracks.
Does anyone know if he faces any further sanction for lying about his status? Does the team? Should they?
I would be fine with him being forced to sit for another couple of games – he put his team and his coaches at risk by lying about his status and violating the COVID protocols. I wonder if he’ll lose any of his sponsorships.
In my mind, a suspension would be way over the top. I’m thinking an appropriate punishment might be more along the lines of a $25k fine. (And if they wanted to get harsh, fine him for each individual instance.)
I think a ban would be too much, but a few weeks suspension makes sense. What are the chances that he’s being truthful about his allergy to whatever is in the mRNA vaccines? Not that it matters, because the J&J vaccine is available, of course.
I lost all respect I may have had for him. The lying is bad enough but lashing out at people when the inevitable questions come up about the positive test is incredibly boorish.
Aaron Rodgers- Great football player. Terrible person.
A suspension seems perfectly in order to me. He endangered every player, Packer or opposing, and coach, trainer etc. that he encountered, maskless.
In fact, I’d like to see contact tracing of covid cases in the league, and see how they line up with exposure to Rodgers.
It sounds like he followed unvaccinated protocol in the locker room and training facility, but didn’t in the press conferences and other media events. So the risk to other players and coaches may not have been as high as it first seemed.
He’s a loon, and in a somewhat dangerous way. So is Brady, with his farkakte diet and association with sleezy trainer guy. But they’re both great quarterbacks so the league won’t don’t anything too serious to them. I hope more sponsors drop Rogers; I’m sure State Farm is considering it.
On the contrary, a big percentage of the players in TB have started going to Alex Guerrero for treatments and diet advice. He has a history of sleezy medical advice (concussion water?) and could easily get players injured.
Brady has said some borderline fishy stuff when first talking about getting vaccinated and treatments for COVID. I think he came around and was vaccinated properly, but I take everything he says with a grain of salt.
But, as a Patriots fan, I still think he’s the GOAT.
The league should suspend him for two or three games, but the twist is that they’re also complicit in letting him get away with some of it, since he pitched his woo to them at some point.
After being discovered he made his case that his woo was valid medicine. The league and the Players Union rejected that. Are you saying that he made his pitch before being discovered and everyone chose to remain silent about it?
I’m saying that the league let him go unmasked in press conferences without calling him out, even though they knew he was full of woo based on his presentation.
What presentation? AFAIK, this only came out after he caught COVID and was exposed. I don’t believe he’s done any official press for the NFL or the Packers since then.
On the Pat McAfee show, he said that when he presented his own research on COVID to the NFL, “they thought I was a quack.”
So at some point earlier in the season he tried to talk them into accepting…whatever…as a proxy for being vaccinated, and they rejected that. So, why hasn’t he been masked at press conferences?
As I understood the story, Rodgers had made a pitch to the league (or the union?) to be deemed compliant based on some homeopathic treatment. Which was rejected, but certainly suggests that people knew about it.
Well let’s also not forget time on the field playing football. How’d you like to be lined up opposite Rodgers while he shouted “Three-Nineteeen! Three-Nineteeen!” in your face?
There are lots of unvaccinated players on the field. That’s allowed by league policy. I think they shouldn’t have allowed that, but they did. As long as they test negative they don’t need to be vaccinated to play.