1. Aaron Rodgers dominated the sports news cycle on Wednesday thanks to a surreal press conference. This wasn’t the only surreal NFL press conference of the day, however.
After Bill’s wide receiver Cole Beasley posted his anti-COVID-19 vaccination thoughts on Twitter for several weeks, he read a statement for two minutes and 46 seconds at training camp that couldn’t have been more ridiculous from start to finish.
Let me go through this line by line:
Beasley: “I wanted to start by saying that I am not against or for Vax. I am Pro-Choice. “
Congratulations. Everyone has a choice whether to be ripped off or not. Nobody stuck a needle in your arm forcibly. If you don’t want to be vaccinated, you don’t have to.
Beasley: “Information is withheld from players in order to steer a player in a direction they may not be comfortable with.”
1) I don’t think so for a second. 2) It’s not that the NFL has secret information that the rest of the world doesn’t. What exclusive knowledge could the NFL possibly have about the vaccine? 3) The information you need is out there. There is a pandemic. More than 600,000 people in the US have died from COVID-19. Vaccines have been developed and you can easily find out how effective they are.
In addition, most people who are now hospitalized with COVID-19 or who die from COVID-19 are not vaccinated. I’m not sure what other “information” is needed.
Beasley: “When it comes to a player’s health and safety, there should be full transparency about the information that is critical to the decision-making process. Without the right information, a gamer can feel misguided and insecure when making a personal decision. It makes a player feel unprotected and raises concerns about future issues related to health and our ability to make informed decisions. For our overall security, we need to know that we are armed with full knowledge and understand that those who can help us will always do so based on our individual situation. “
This is a classic case of a person stringing words and sentences together to sound smart, but it’s all gibberish and nonsense.
Roger Goodell took the vaccine and is asking people in the NFL offices to get vaccinated. There is your transparency.
Beasley cannot argue that the NFL does not care about the health of the players in this situation if the league’s staff do exactly what they ask of the players. If Goodell and the folks who work in the NFL offices have been vaccinated, Beasley’s theory that the league is trying to turn the players into guinea pigs just doesn’t make sense.
Beasley: “Some people might think that if I do this, I’m selfish. It’s all about the young players who have no voice and who turn to me every day because they are told that if they are not annoyed, they will be circumcised. Agents are told by teams that if they have unvaccinated boys, they now have no opportunity to be seen in workouts. Once unvaccinated players are cut, they lose a dream they have worked all their lives on a vaccine that has been proven not to stop people from contracting COVID as we have seen.
This is a nice attempt on the part of Beasley to gain recognition for his advocacy for young players, but he’s already shown his hand on Twitter making it clear it’s all about him.
Beasley: “Every doctor I go to with questions starts every sentence with ‘what we know now,’ which tells me we don’t know enough.”
Yes, because these doctors work in reality and with science and can only orientate themselves on what they know at the time.
Then, in a nice attempt to distract himself, Beasley started rambling about tests and the Gamblers Association, which had nothing to do with vaccination.
He ended by saying, “When it comes to player safety, I would like to conclude by saying that we all want to be safe. For so many players in the NFL, safety isn’t just about avoiding the COVID virus.
It’s absolutely surreal, breathtaking and depressing that 16 months after this pandemic there are still people like Beasley who don’t understand the concept of this virus spreading like a mother beeper.
YOUR safety may not just depend on avoiding COVID-19 but what about your coaches who are older? What about immunocompromised people around you? How is this still not understood by so many people?
As an aside, how on earth did the Bills decide this was something to highlight on their social media channels?
I would have thought the team expected Beasley to stick to his own words on May 14th.
2. A brand new episode of the SI Media Podcast came out this morning, and it is includes an interview with Bryan Curtis of The Ringer.
The Pressbox Pod writer and co-host talks about a recent article he wrote about longtime Dallas broadcaster Dale Hansen and the local news sports host’s death.
Curtis also talks about how ESPN’s problem with the NBA countdown was exposed during the Rachel Nichols and Maria Taylor controversy about why ESPN didn’t get its white whale in the new Monday Night Football deal with Peyton Manning, the low Olympic ratings and viewer complaints about NBC coverage, Charles Barkley’s Freedom, Siskel and Ebert, and more.
After interviewing Curtis, WFAN and SNY’s Sal Licata joins the podcast for the weekly segment “Traina Thoughts” discussing the worst time on the sports calendar, the evil of TikTok and more.
You can listen to the podcast below or download it on Apple, Spotify, and Stitcher.
3rd The Big 12 are unsatisfied with ESPN’s alleged role in attempting to dismantle the conference while strengthening the SEC. ESPN was granted the rights by CBS last year to broadcast the best SEC game every Saturday.
4th As a media representative, I found it fascinating to see Aaron Rodgers corroborate everything the media covered over the past few months and then blame the media for making stories. I kind of appreciated the boldness.
But the media didn’t.
5. After the Giants cut off the narrow end on Wednesday, Kelvin Benjamin, Benjamin accused head coach Joe Judge of … waiting … waiting … waiting … waiting … swearing.
6th Kevin Durant’s Twitter game is still going strong. This is how he responded to someone who said Kyrie Irving needed a better team around her.
7.RANDOM VIDEO OF THE DAY: If you’re an old man and pop culture freak like me, you know Jerry Lawler slapping Andy Kaufman on Letterman was a big moment. It happened that day in 1982.
Be sure to Find out about past issues of Traina Thoughts and check out the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast hosted by Jimmy Traina Apple, Spotify or stapler. You can also follow Jimmy on Twitter and Instagram.
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