Aaron Rodgers

Let’s get the easy part of the way. Aaron Rodgers is a phenomenal football player who is surely a Hall of Fame quarterback. He is one of the best players of his era and potentially of all time. Regardless, that is not why we are discussing Rodgers today.

Aaron Rodgers was diagnosed with a COVID-19 infection this past week. What made the situation unusual was that Rodgers was placed in an NFL COVID-19 protocol for unvaccinated individuals. This require him to take a longer period away from the game for quarantine.

The interesting thing is that Aaron Rodgers told people in August that he was “immunized” to COVID-19 and even dismissed other players who had publicly stated they’d refused the vaccine.

It now turns out that Rogers was never “immunized” and never received a COVID vaccine. He contends he did not lie to people when he said he was “immunized” because he took an “alternative therapy” which gave him “immunity.”

To clarify for Mr. Rodgers, the term “immunized“ is a synonym for being vaccinated! This is not something that comes from a voodoo ritual or some animal drug ingestion. It’s the result of being purposely and specifically given a vaccine against a disease.

Rodgers now states that he is “allergic to components of the mRNA vaccines.” I happen to know something about this and in the vast majority of cases this concern is not realized and a person can safely get the vaccine. There are several studies proving this point. While I will await confirmation from his allergist on his particular situation, there are specific methods to evaluate whether he would be eligible for mRNA COVID-19 vaccines. 

In addition, Rodgers stated that he “simply did not want the Johnson & Johnson vaccine,” which would suggest that he was not allergic to a component of that vaccine. He also now claims that he received alternative treatments that provided him immunity to the vaccine to COVID-19. This is really a remarkable statement and I would love to understand what these treatments involved.

The disconcerting thing about this is not that Rogers refused to get immunized and put his team at competitive risk (which he did). It is that he misled everyone into thinking he was immunized and acted that way. He never wore a mask in any of the media sessions (which the NFL required unvaccinated people to do) and he did not follow other guidelines suggested for unvaccinated individuals. Therefore, he purposely put other people at risk for COVID by refusing to wear a mask after he had lied to them about his vaccination status.

Why he did this is not clear. Maybe he though it would harm his image if he was considered “anti-vax,”or he might have thought the NFL’s rules just didn’t apply to him (the league reportedly never considered him vaccinated). I would have respected him if he were honest about his beliefs, no matter how misguided, and fully adhered to protocols for individuals without immunity. It’s entirely different to lie to people and put them at at risk without their knowledge.

I’ll always think of Aaron Rodgers is a great football player. I will no longer consider him a good person