"Players can make their choices but they cannot choose their consequences."
— Dr. David Chao
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SAN DIEGO — The National Football League has quit tiptoeing through its two lips on the COVID-19 issue and put down its extra large Gucci loafer.
With so many of its players unvaccinated, The League, unlike 2020, is threatening forfeits — and the all-important loss of paychecks — if a COVID-19 outbreak among those without the vaccines leads to the 2021 regular season being thrown into disarray.
Commissioner Roger Goodell can't force players to get shots because of a union agreement, but he can try to inject some common sense into their heads by poking them where it hurts the most — in the wallet.
It's not very often I agree with the NFL, which puts bank first — it's incredibly good at — and image, where it fails all too often but always lands softly on the dollar pillow — second. I do here.
In a Thursday memo, Goodell wrote that 80% of the players were fully or partially vaccinated and more than 50% of the teams have shot rates 80% or above (by the way, the NFL Team That Used To Be Here is one of four clubs not at 50%).
Thus, unvaccinated players will undergo daily testing and must wear masks during the pre and regular seasons. They'll be fined $14,650 for every break in protocol. On the spot. So they will be made to feel like outcasts.
It won't be like 2020. Games likely aren't going to be rescheduled. Teams are going to forfeit.
Forfeits will mean players lose their paychecks and the infected franchise will be responsible for the leak in The League's revenue-sharing pool.
NFL franchises just equally shared $9.8 billion in 2020 revenue. And while that figure certainly will rise, Goodell and his 32 bosses don't want holes in their yachts.
Stars will be involved. In a tweet he quickly removed, superb Arizona receiver DeAndre Hopkins said he would question his future in the game if his refusal to get shots damaged the Cardinals' chances to succeed.
Cowboys talkback Ezekiel Elliott said he grew up in a family that refused vaccines, but he got the shots anyway, adding: "It's everybody's body. You can't tell them what to do with it."
Well, yes you can. Professional sports leagues aren't like any other businesses, but employees in normally run operations certainly can be ordered to get vaccinated — or find something else to do. Do businesses (and teams, by the way) not require drug tests?
While Goodell can't order compliance, vaccinations are required among The League's non-union personnel. Vikings O-line coach Rick Dennison, earning close to a mil a year, has reportedly been fired (although Vikings say nothing is final yet). His problem. Best of luck in your future endeavors.
I don't get it. The spread of the Delta variant proves this damn thing can't be licked by defiance or politics. Vaccines work. They're not 100%. But odds are overwhelmingly in favor of those who get them.
It makes no sense to me that so many athletes, unafraid to pump unknown PEDs into their precious bodies to keep a step ahead of the drug cops and their competition, are willing to risk their health and the health of others — and miss paychecks.
It's stupid. The NFL may not have scored a direct hit, but it has blasted a close, money "shot" over the bow.
And if I know avaricious professional athletes, what Goodell has fired for effect will have an effect.
