Is Aaron Rodgers the best quarterback in the National Football League? That’s debatable.
What’s not debatable: He didn’t play Sunday because he has COVID-19, and that’s after lying to the media about being vaccinated for COVID-19.
When Rodgers was asked last August if he had been vaccinated, he told reporters, “Yeah, I’ve been immunized.”
Clearly, Rodgers was trying to be evasive with the media, even though it should be noted that the first word out of his mouth after being asked if he was vaccinated was, “Yeah.” And, for the record, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines “immunization” as, “A process by which a person becomes protected against a disease through vaccination. This term is often used interchangeably with vaccination or inoculation.”
The Atlantic’s Jemele Hill wrote, “In retrospect, his disingenuous comments hint at a specific kind of self-centeredness; he seemed to believe he was smarter than everyone else in the room.”
The fact is Rodgers was not vaccinated then and he is not vaccinated now. After the news broke last week that he had contracted COVID-19, Rodgers ran to the radio show hosted by his buddy, former NFL punter Pat McAfee, and tried to play the victim. He said he never lied to the media, ridiculously suggested that the media should have asked him follow-up questions so he would have been more clear about his status, and then bellyached about being in the “crosshairs of the woke mob” and how he was a victim of cancel culture. He then said something about being allergic to the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, although the league did not grant him a medical exemption. Rodgers said he followed the NFL’s protocols for unvaccinated players, although that is not true because he did maskless interviews with the media.
All in all, Rodgers lied, broke the COVID-19 protocols, apparently asked for medical advice from podcaster Joe Rogan, missed a game (which his team lost by scoring a measly seven points) and is blaming everyone else for it.
So it’s good to see that the media, especially the often chummy NFL pregame shows, blast Rodgers for his narcissistic actions.
Especially notable was the “Fox NFL Sunday” pregame show, which did its show Sunday from the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. Analyst and Hall of Fame coach Jimmy Johnson said he was “disappointed” in Rodgers’ response that he was “immunized” and went on to call Rodgers “selfish.” Hall of Fame player Michael Strahan criticized how Rodgers intentionally misled the media with his “immunized” comment and called Rodgers’ behavior “deceptive” and “wrong.”
But the strongest comments came from Hall of Fame quarterback Terry Bradshaw, who said, “I’ll give Aaron Rodgers some advice. It would have been nice if he had just come to the Naval Academy and learned how to be honest. Learned not to lie. Because that’s what you did, Aaron. You lied to everyone. I understand ‘immunized.’ What you were doing was taking stuff that would keep you from getting COVID-19. You got COVID-19. Ivermectin is a cattle dewormer. Sorry, folks, that’s what it is. We are a divided nation politically. We are a divided nation on the COVID-19, whether or not to take the vaccine. And unfortunately, we’ve got players that pretty much think only about themselves. And I’m extremely disappointed in the actions of Aaron Rodgers.”
It’s hard to find anyone, other than some Packers fans and the anti-vax crowd, who are on Rodgers’ side here.
Even the late-night hosts are having fun with Rodgers. CBS’s Stephen Colbert talked about Rodgers’ evasive answer to being vaccinated, saying, “That’s really vague. He better not talk that way in the huddle.” ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel said, “Aaron is a Karen, that’s the fact of the matter.”
In a column for The Washington Post, sports columnist Jerry Brewer wrote, “The Packers can trust his talent and stretch the definition of team to accommodate a player so stubborn and extraordinary. But they cannot trust him, not on matters that require deference or social responsibility or faith in anything other than his big ol’ ego.”
Oh, during his interview with McAfee, Rodgers quoted Martin Luther King Jr., saying, “I would add this to the mix as an aside, but the great MLK said you have a moral obligation to object to unjust rules and rules that make no sense.”
Strahan said, “There are times to quote Martin Luther King, and this was not one of them.”
McAfee’s job
How did Pat McAfee do with his Rodgers interview? Well, let’s be clear about something: McAfee is not a journalist. McAfee is a radio host. He’s an entertainer. Rodgers is his pal and goes on McAfee’s show weekly. And, it’s true that Rodgers often breaks a lot of news on McAfee’s show. But let’s not confuse McAfee with Mike Wallace.
Then again, Awful Announcing’s Sean Keeley made a smart point when he wrote, “For better or worse, Aaron Rodgers showed the world exactly who he is. And that only could have happened on a platform like ‘The Pat McAfee Show’ under the circumstances he’s created. Had he sat down to be interviewed by a more seasoned journalist or a podcaster with a journalistic background, he undoubtedly would have had to face tougher questions and wouldn’t have been able to talk about certain topics unchecked. And that probably sounds like a bad thing to him, but perhaps, in some way, that platform undercuts the depths of where Aaron Rodgers went on Friday, saving him from himself.”
Chris Wallace honored
