The 2021 NFL season tangibly begins next week as training camps unfurl, and King Sport is approaching its new year with all the grace of an overweight offensive lineman huffing and heaving uphill.
COVID is spiking again with the Delta variant (in case you haven’t been following current events), and yet the NFL mirrors the reluctance of America, especially of young, athlete-aged Americans, to get vaccinated against the pandemic.
It seems more than 608,000 U.S. deaths in the past year-plus have not been enough to convince the anti-science crowd.
New cases have spiked almost 70 percent across America just in the past week, with eight states including Florida showing a particularly rapid rise. Los Angeles County just reinstated its mask mandates. Almost 100 percent of the new test-positives are in those who have yet to get the vaccine, and still the unvaccinated defiantly and senselessly trudge forth.
The unvaccinated are the pandemic equivalent of those folks you used to see in smoking rooms at airports, sucking cigarettes in an acrid cloud. The outliers. The modern-day lepers.
COVID just postponed a Yankees-Red Sox game. Monday, an unnamed alternate on the U.S. women’s gymnastics team tested positive in Tokyo, where the Summer Olympics are to begin Friday. Young tennis star Coco Gauff tested positive, erasing her Olympic dream.
Who will be the first NFL player erased from training camp after testing positive because he fancied his himself bulletproof and didn’t get the vaccine?
So Hall of Fame receiver Michael Irvin lit into his former team the other day, into America’s Team, the Dallas Cowboys, for not being among the 13 NFL teams (well under half) that have reached the 85 percent threshold on vaccinations. By extension he was speaking about athletes in general.
The Miami Dolphins, a club source told us Monday, are among the 13 teams at better than 85 percent. They got there in mid-June. And good for them. It is another indication of the team culture coach Brian Flores is instilling.
But don’t pin a medal on the teams simply following science, common sense and Centers for Disease Control advice. That should be the norm.
Sports should be leading the pro-vaccine fight by example, but instead sports as a whole have dropped the ball, as evidenced by 19 of 32 teams being below that 85 standard and two teams (reportedly Washington and Indianapolis) insanely still being below 50 percent.
Where are all the public-service announcements on TV in which our biggest sports stars are out front encouraging fans to be vaccinated?
Unfortunately and counter-productively, the NFLPA collectively bargained that players not be required to get the vaccine, even though all Tier 1 and Tier 2 team personnel — including head coaches, assistants and all primary support staff — must be vaccinated.
That allows backward thinking anti-science crusaders such as Bills receiver Cole Beasley to blatantly put their own selfish selves ahead of their teammates, even as increased hardships such as daily testing and mandatory masks await the unvaccinated in training camps and beyond.
“Dude, you’re not thinking right. You’re not thinking right,” said Irvin, as if addressing the Cowboys locker room. “Not being one of the [13 highly vaccinated teams] says there’s other things to a great number of people on this team that are more important than winning championships. And that makes me worried.”
Beyond the obvious health risk, the still unvaccinated will face increasing limitations across America as long as the coronavirus pandemic has any role in our lives America — which it will have longer than it otherwise would expressly because of the unvaccinated.
San Francisco has plans to require all 35,000 city employees to be vaccinated or risk being fired. Cruise lines are in court fighting for the right to allow vaccinated passengers only.
In our own backyard, the Miami Dolphins will now require all media wishing to cover training camp to offer proof of vaccinations. And bravo for that. It’s smart.
You think not getting the vaccine is an exercise of your personal freedom, athletes and others? Fine. Die on that hill (hopefully not literally) if you choose.
Just don’t start whining when you find out there are consequences to your choice.
