Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers has shared his opinions on just about everything this season. From his frustrations with the Packers organization in the offseason, to cancel culture and COVID-19, Rodgers has opened up in a way that we have not seen throughout his illustrious 17-year career.
On his weekly appearance on “The Pat McAfee Show,” Rodgers once again dished on how the NFL has handled COVID-19 as the Omicron variant has heavily impacted the locker rooms, as well as society’s apparent unwillingness to discuss treatment options for those who have tested positive for the virus.
“The league has adjusted some of the policies already,” Rodgers said Tuesday. “What I don’t understand though — it makes no sense to me — is to continue to spread this narrative that non-vaccinated players are either more dangerous or superspreaders. Which obviously has been proven to not be true.”
“I was talking with one of our coaches a couple days ago about two years ago, when the flu hit the league kind of hard. It hit us hard,” Rodgers continued. “We had over 20 guys I believe that had the flu at one point. During that time, those guys stayed home or stayed away from people. And if they were able to play — if their symptoms receded enough — they played in the game. And those that didn’t stayed away. You were smart about it, and you reported symptoms when you had symptoms, but it seems like this variant is very similar to the flu that we experienced a couple years ago. So why are we still having this two-class system and pushing this narrative … There’s not many unvaccinated guys left in the league…It’s obviously not a pandemic of the unvaxxed.”
Tuesday night, the NFL shortened the isolation time for players who test positive for the virus from 10 days to five, regardless of vaccination status. Vaccinated players displaying no symptoms of COVID-19 are now tested less frequently, while unvaccinated players are still required to test on a daily basis.
“Vaccinated people are testing positive, and non-vaccinated people are testing positive too. I don’t understand why there’s still this two-class system. It doesn’t make sense to me. Because we’re still punishing non-vaxxed people when the majority of the teams are mostly vaccinated. One’s that are 100% vaccinated are still having major cases, and it’s across all sports,” Rodgers said.
Rodgers, as he did in last week’s appearance, questioned why COVID-19 treatments are never discussed in society. After testing positive for COVID-19 in November — informing the world that Rodgers was unvaccinated — he shared his treatment plan with McAfee, which included advice from podcast host Joe Rogan.
“How come in a league where we’re seeing with 51 guys on the [COVID-19] list yesterday, there’s still zero conversation — at least publicly — around treatment options for people that test positive?”
On Tuesday, NFL Network reported that 106 players tested positive for COVID-19 the day prior.
Rodgers went on to say that many NFL teams are recommending and using many of the same treatments he used to get rid of the COVID-19 symptoms he experienced.
“If science can’t be questioned it’s not science anymore, it’s propaganda,” Rodgers said.
"If science can't be questioned it's not science anymore it's propaganda & that's the truth" ~@AaronRodgers12#PatMcAfeeShowLIVE pic.twitter.com/8PHGdTgYmc
— Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) December 28, 2021
McAfee asked Rodgers about being attacked for sharing his thoughts on COVID-19, to which Rodgers questioned why we’re no longer allowed to have a “healthy dialogue” anymore.
“When did we lose the ability to respect somebody’s opinion? My thoughts are just my own opinion on this matter,” Rodgers said. “Let’s have a healthy debate.”
“We might not change our thoughts, but we can’t have a healthy dialogue without name-calling and mudslinging?” he added.
"When did we lose the ability to respect somebody's opinion.. my thoughts on Covid are my opinion. Why can't we have more conversations between people with different opinions" ~@AaronRodgers12#PatMcAfeeShowLIVE pic.twitter.com/R7TqgSzvkx
— Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) December 28, 2021
Last week, Rodgers expressed his frustration with the lack of conversations around a healthy lifestyle and treatments for preventing and treating COVID-19.
“The one frustration that I have in all of this, is that throughout this entire time there hasn’t been real conversation around health,” Rodgers said. “As far as giving people things to think about when it comes to health, like how to be healthier. As far as your diet, vitamins, and exercise. But the other thing that hasn’t been talked about is treatments. … Obviously I’ve talked to a lot of friends who had COVID, including Joe [Rogan], and figured out a protocol that I had ready in case I got COVID that basically took my symptoms from what they were to non-existence in 36 hours.”
Rodgers also questioned why treatment options are not discussed by the NFL and by society at large.
“But I don’t understand why society and the NFL hasn’t talked about legitimate treatment options,” Rodgers continued. “And monoclonal antibodies I believe is one of them. Ivermectin obviously has negative attachments with it. It’s controversial. CNN labeled it horse-dewormer but it’s being used in Japan, and India, and other places. But if you’re not doing any of that, at least can there be conversation around treatments that can help out guys — if they have major symptoms — to recover quicker?”
Joe Morgan is the Sports Reporter for The Daily Wire. Most recently, Morgan covered the Clippers, Lakers, and the NBA for Sporting News. Send your sports questions to [email protected].