There is possibly no hot-button topic more controversial than COVID vaccine mandates. The NFL has refined the controversy to a level beyond most any other approach.
In the very latest “tweak” the NFL and the NFL Players Association (who follow the new CDC guidelines reducing isolation players from 5 to 10 days). This includes players who are COVID positive unvaccinated but asymptomatic.
Carson Wentz
The QB for the Indianapolis Colts, Carson Wentz, tested positive for COVID on Monday, December 27, 2021. If the NFL deems Wentz to have overcome his symptoms, he is free to play on Sunday, January 2, 2002. It is unimportant to this particular post, but Wentz has refused to discuss why he has refused to get vaccinated, stating only that it is personal. That explanation, it seems, is more than good enough for both the NFL and the NFL Players Association.
According to ESPN back in September, Wentz said:
“I’m not going to go into depth on why, but I will say it’s a personal decision for me and my family… no one really knows what’s going on in someone else’s household and how things are being handled. It’s a personal decision. That’s just where I’m at on it and with the protocols and everything the way they are, really for us, it’s about understanding them clearly and making sure that we are dotting our I’s and crossing our T’s.”
So, despite breakthrough cases, mask wearing requirements, required vaccine immunization records and the like for many of us, Wentz is free to play as long as he is asymptomatic. Is this a function of the fact that the Indianapolis Colts are in the thick of a playoff race? Is this a nod to the fact that the NFL is currently beleaguered by positive COVID cases and they want to simply move on and pretend the virus no longer exists?
Not So Hard to Mask
For years, in fact decades, players have gotten up off of their sick beds to play in games. Flus have been creatively masked in many ways. The difference, of course, is that contagion is rapid with COVID, and unlike more common influenza’s, the potential to get severely sick is always present. Other than Carson Wentz, his coaches and team physician saying that he’s “good to go,” who will keep him off the field? There are surely treatments to make him appear to be fine – for at least a few hours.
Let me bring up an unpleasant fact: for years the NFL hid the effects of head trauma and other injuries. The NFL and NFLPA have still not fully acknowledged the effects of the policies of ignorance and cover-ups. My point is that even if (privately) Carson Wentz feels lousy, who will blow the whistle on him? There are playoffs to be played and lots of money to be made.
The hypocrisy of the NFL is somehow overlooked when it comes time to play the game.
And yes, there is a not-so-subtle message conveyed to tens of millions of impressionable fans: it’s OK to not get vaccinated; it’s OK to keep going to work and/or socializing; it’s OK to not tell others that five days earlier you were sick with COVID.
I am clearly not naïve enough to expect the NFL, their players or fans to listen to me, but isn’t it rather hypocritical and unethical for a league to make no firm demands in terms of vaccinations and expectations, while the rest of society is conforming to mandates?
Has the NFL gone so far to be nice that they place profits above people?
LEAVE YOUR COMMENTS!
