Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins has been awarded the Bart Starr Award. The award is sponsored by the NFL and the Christian group Athletes in Action and honors “active NFL players who demonstrate outstanding character, integrity and leadership in their football careers and personal lives.”
What an utterly absurd choice.
Source: Vikings.com
Yes indeed, Kirk Cousins is “clean-cut.” He doesn’t swear much. He stays out of jail. He goes to church, and talks about his faith a lot. Good for him. If that is all there was to “character” and “integrity,” the Bart Starr award would make perfect sense.
But Cousins has also revealed a very selfish side, and that side can’t be ignored.
First, when COVID-19 was most dangerous because no vaccine or effective treatments had yet been developed, Cousins refused to mask and isolate. “If I die, I die,” the tough guy crowed. He thought it was all about him. Protecting vulnerable people all around him wasn’t on his radar.
Then, in the face of the worst pandemic in a century, a virus that has killed 6.86 million people worldwide,enough to fill the Vikings’ stadium about 94 times, Cousins refused to get a simple, safe, and effective COVID vaccine to protect his teammates, fans, and community from the deadly disease.
About 77% of Minnesotans got the life-protecting vaccine. About 95% of Cousins’ fellow NFL players did too. Nearly 100% of “NFL personnel” got it. But not the selfish, self-righteous Cousins.
The results were predictable. Cousins ultimately got infected, needlessly endangered others around him in the process, and wasn’t there for his team when it needed him. What a “team-first,” “high-character” guy.
Source: USA Today’s For the Win
The NFL didn’t seriously punish Cousins for his dangerous self-centeredness. Instead, it gave him its highest award for “character, integrity, and leadership.”
Keep in mind, players who use cannabis, an action that hurts no one, routinely get suspended and scolded by the NFL. Players who peacefully and silently protest racism and brutality during the National Anthem, which hurts no one and brings visibility to an important issue, get punished and scolded by the NFL. But players who knowingly put their teammates, fans, and community in grave danger get showered with praise for their character.
“To the degree of how one responds to the tragedies of life and what one does to make a positive difference in the lives of others serves as a true measure of character and achievement.”
Cousins recently lived through one of the most profound “tragedies of life” any of us have encountered. He lived through nearly seven million people suffocating to death because they got infected with a highly contagious virus. Once the COVID vaccine was developed, Cousins had his chance to “make a positive difference in the lives of others.” About 95% of NFL players passed their character test. Cousins failed his.
Elections in a purple state can give you whiplash.
After red wave elections, we’re led by Republicans like Tim Pawlenty who push for low taxes, poor services, and culture wars.
After blue wave elections, we’re led by DFLers like Tim Walz who push for higher taxes, better services, and cultural tolerance.
After elections with more mixed results, legislative stalemates cause us to keep the prevailing status quo frozen in place.
That makes every election cycle extremely consequential.
The South Dakota Vision for Minnesota
In 2022, a decidedly purple Minnesota – at the time, it was the only state in the nation with one chamber of the state Legislature controlled by Democrats and the other controlled by Republicans – held a particularly high-stakes election.
If Minnesota voters had elected ultra-conservative former physician gubernatorial candidate Scott Jensen and a Republican Legislature dominated by far-right Trumpers, Minnesota would have become a conservative promised land, much like its neighbor to the west, South Dakota.
During the campaign, Jensen and other Republicans proposed a race-to-the-bottom on taxes, including eliminating the state income tax, which would have led to dramatically worse services. Republican spinmeisters prefer to say “smaller government,” but the reality is that it would have meant much worse services. The anti-vaxxer Doc Jensen also pledged a South Dakota-like war on public health and culture war initiatives to force conservatives’ thinking on gays, guns, God, and gynecology on all Minnesotans.
In other words, think Kristi Noem, with a stethoscope prop.
The Scandinavia Vision for Minnesota
Fortunately, 192,408 more Minnesotans voted for incumbent Governor Tim Walz than Jensen. More surprisingly, since it was predicted to be a historically horrible year for Democrats, Minnesotans also elected narrow DFL majorities in the state House and Senate. The all-important Senate majority is especially razor-thin at 34-33.
Walz and the DFL-controlled Legislatures are armed with a $17.5
billion budget surplus and are offering a vision that is more like a social democratic-led
Scandinavian country in the 1970s than South Dakota in the 2020s:
Paid family and medical leave;
An enormous funding increase for public schools;
A targeted child tax credit to dramatically reduce childhood poverty;
Down payment assistance for first-time home buyers, homelessness prevention, affordable housing, and rent vouchers;
A huge package to save the beleaguered childcare sector and make child care free for poor families and more affordable for middle-class families;
Large subsidies for weatherization, electric vehicle infrastructure, and solar energy expansion to combat climate change;
A range of gun violence prevention reforms, such as universal background checks, red flag laws to prevent people who could be perceived as a threat to themselves or others from getting guns, raising the legal age for obtaining military-style rifles to 21, and banning high-capacity magazines;
Enfranchising felons who have served their time; and
A capital gains tax hike for the wealthiest Minnesotans.
The list goes on. Overall, think Bernie Sanders, with a Fargo accent.
This is the most dramatic swing of state policy in my lifetime, and perhaps in the history of the state. And if somebody you may have never heard of, Judy Seeberger (DFL-Afton), had received just 322 fewer votes in her state Senate race, most of those changes would never have been possible. Without Seeberger’s handful of votes in the eastern suburbs of the Twin Cities metropolitan area, Minnesota would still be stuck in limbo between the South Dakota vision and the Scandinavia vision. 322 votes.
Minnesota GOP gubernatorial candidate Scott Jensen has one huge advantage over DFL Governor Tim Walz – rural voters. If Jensen wins in November, and he might because of frustration over crime and inflation, it will be because he successfully energized rural Minnesota. Rural areas have gotten reliably Republican, so yesterday’s FarmFest debate was the Twin Cities resident’s big opportunity to close the deal by stressing his rural development ideas.
Photo credit: Dana Ferguson, Forum News Service
But instead of using all of his time to make that case, Jensen apparently spent quite a lot of time emphasizing what he always seems to emphasize — COVID-related cray-cray.
I just don’t understand why Jensen is convinced that this is such a winning political issue for him. Early on, when little information was available, Jensen became a star on conservative news outlets like Fox News recklessly speculating about how the pandemic might turn out. But now that actual research has emerged, it’s clear that Jensen’s early guesses have turned out to be spectacularly, embarrassingly wrong.
Still, Jensen just can’t stop himself from going there:
Quite incredibly, Jensen, a physician by training, still remains unvaccinated. Keep in mind, over 95 percent of physicians are vaccinated, putting Jensen in a very small minority of extremists in his profession. Moreover, an overwhelming majority of Minnesotans made a different decision. Seven out of ten (3.946 million) of them have gotten them fully vaccinated. Among the states, Minnesota has the second best rate of residents that have been boosted.
Jensen also still expresses skepticism about vaccine effectiveness. But the facts are now in. They show that the vaccine has been highly effective in reducing hospitalizations and deaths, and have enabled Minnesota’s society and economy to return to normal. Despite all of this, Doc Jensen apparently still thinks preaching anti-vax myths to the small group of holdouts is wise political strategy.
Beyond Jensen’s incessant vaccination nonsense, he somehow continues to recommend Minnesotans use the antiparasitic drug ivermectin. The federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has not approved ivermectin, because a number of medical studies have proven it to be ineffective and dangerous. But apparently Team Jensen is convinced that pushing this discredited quackery is going to get him elected.
And then there is public health. Jensen maintains that Walz’s public health measures to limit COVID spread were unnecessary and ineffective. But the facts are now in, and Minnesota under Walz had one of the region’s best rates of COVID deaths per capita. If Walz had adopted the conservative hands-off public health approach used in neighboring South Dakota, 5,000 more people would have died, according to an analysis done by Dane Smith. That’s roughly equivalent to the population of Minnesota towns like Circle Pines, Luverne, Redwood Falls, Lindstrom, and Morris. Still, Jensen apparently is convinced that championing the demonstrably deadly South Dakota model is the best path to victory in November.
Finally, Jensen claims that Walz protecting Minnesotans during the deadliest pandemic in a century destroyed the Minnesota economy. Again, the facts now tell us a very different tale. Minnesota currently has the lowest unemployment of any state in the nation (1.8 percent), a historic low. Minnesota’s state budget outlook is strong enough that it also recently had its bond rating upgraded to AAA for the first time in nearly 20 years. But Jensen remains convinced that Minnesotans will buy his contention that Walz’s pandemic response made the state into a dystopian economic hellscape.
Stop, Doc, just stop! Take it from fellow Republican Bill Brock: “Let me tell you about the law of holes: If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.”
The next time Jensen gets in front of a group of farmers and rural residents, he should abandon his stale, disproven COVID kookiness. Instead, he should try focusing on things that actually impact his audience’s lives, such as drought relief, broadband expansion, education investment, paid family and medical leave, health coverage affordability, and road and bridge improvements.
Former Minnesota State Senator Scott Jensen (R-Chaska) announced who he believes is the second most qualified Minnesotan, after him, to run Minnesota’s state government during very challenging times. Jensen picked — fake gjallarhorn, please! — the Minnesota Vikings’ former Center Matt Birk.
A celebrity! Intriguing! Fresh!
An all-white male ticket! That has got to be first for Republicans, right?
Predictably, the Birk announcement got a lot of uncritical news coverage in Minnesota, particularly from local TV and radio newsrooms. These are some of the same jock sniffers who spend roughly one-third of most news broadcasts building up local athletes as heroes.
And who knows, the Birk stunt just might work, politically speaking. After all, this is a state that “shocked the world” and elected an outlandish and churlish former fake wrestler, and then was shocked when he turned out to be an outlandish and churlish fake Governor.
To be fair, Birk is certainly no Ventura. The Saint Paul native is Harvard educated, and not clownish like Ventura . He’s also done a lot of admirable charitable work in the community. On many levels, I admire him.
But he’s applying to be Governor, and he is largely an unknown quantity on policy issues. So maybe the local media should pump the breaks just a bit on the Birk bandwagon. You know, like maybe ask him a few questions about his actual plans and positions?
Reasons for Skepticism
Here’s a few reasons why skepticism is warranted:
He’s an Extremist Abortion Banner. One of the few Birk policy positions we know about is that he supports overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion during the first trimester of pregnancy. Birk feels so strongly about this that he refused to join his Baltimore Ravens teammates in being honored at the White House, because Birk would have had to stand in proximity with then-President Barack Obama, who opposes overturning Roe.
Citizen Birk obviously had every right to express that opinion. But he is now applying to be Lieutenant Governor for all of Minnesota, and this position puts him at odds with the a huge majority of the people he seeks to represent. Surveys show that two-thirds (67%) of Minnesotans oppose overturning Roe.
At a time when it looks likely that the court is about to overturn Roe and start allowing state governments to take away women’s abortion rights, Birk’s refusal to listen to two-thirds of his constituents on this timely issue is a particularly big deal.
He’s an Extremist Marriage EqualityBanner. Abortion isn’t the only issue where Birk is out of step with a majority of Minnesotans. In 2012, he very actively campaigned in favor of the Minnesota Marriage Amendment that would have changed the Minnesota constitution to specifically prohibit marriage equality for same-sex couples.
Once again, Birk is on the right wing fringe, ignoring the opinions of two-thirds of his would-be constituents. A 2018 poll shows 67 percent of Minnesotans support same sex marriage.
Birk’s positions on abortion rights and marriage equality would seem to portend how he would come down on other socially conservative changes being pushed by the far-right, such as book banning and “don’t say gay” laws.
He’s Unqualified for the Job. Then there’s the small matter of qualifications. Birk currently has as much directly relevant experience to be a heartbeat away from the top position in state government as current Lt. Governor Peggy Flanagan has to be a professional football player.
After electing a wealthy celebrity with no governing experience President blew up in the nation’s face, maybe we should be a little more cautious about hiring someone who has never done any actual state governance to lead a very complex $48.5 billion per biennium endeavor. How many times do we have to make this same mistake?
He’s Hitched His Wagon to a Extremist Quack. Even if you like Birk as a player, philanthropist, and sports analyst, and I do, you should learn a little more about his running mate Scott Jensen before signing up to be a Jensen-Birk supporter.
For instance, the non-partisan fact-checking organization Politifact cited Jensen as a major source of its 2020 “Lie of the Year 2020 about coronavirus downplaying and denial. This is arguably the most lethal political lie of our times, and Jensen played a very prominent and destructive role spreading it.
Jensen also joined U.S. Capitol insurrectionist Simone Gold and others in suing the federal government to prevent children from receiving COVID-19 vaccines.
But apparently none of this bothered Birk.
COVID denial and anti-vax messaging earned Jensen a lot of love on Fox News and other far-right outlets, but now he is trying to win a plurality of votes in Minnesota, a state with the second highest rate or boosted residents, and where about three-fourths (74%) of voting age residents rejected Jensen’s ignorant, irresponsible medical quackery and got themselves vaccinated.
What We Don’t Know
Beyond the handful of issues cited here, Minnesotans have no idea where Birk stands on a whole host of other important issues.
Paid family and medical leave? Public funding for free birth control, which is proven to dramatically reduce unplanned pregnancies and abortions? Giving Minnesotans the option to buy into MinnesotCare? Prayer in public schools? Which religion’s prayer? Taxpayers subsidizing billionaire sports team owners’ stadiums? Making the wealthiest 1% of Minnesotans, which includes Birk, pay higher taxes to fund education improvements? Accepting Obamacare funding for Medicare expansion in Minnesota? Maintaining the MNsure Obamacare insurance exchange? “Don’t say gay” laws to punish teachers who mention gay people in school? Allowing parents to ban books from school libraries?
In addition, the state where a majority (52.4%) of 2020 voters rejected Trump should know whether Birk voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020, and whether he plans to vote for the insurrection inciter in 2024. We also must know whether Birk supports the Big Lie that Trump didn’t lose the 2020 election.
I’m very interested to know the answers to these questions. Is Birk Trumpy enough to win far-right primary votes, but too Trumpy to win swing voters in the general election? Or will Birk expose himself to be insufficiently Trumpy, and subsequently be a “kiss of death” for Jensen in the primaries, where Trump loyalists are dominant and demand total obedience.
To be clear, I deeply respect the man’s ability to calmly read a defense with another man’s hands nestled firmly in his buttocks. Skol!
But maybe Minnesotans deserve to know more about Matt Birk than that.
Saint Paul, Minnesota — Minnesota gubernatorial candidate Scott Jensen today called on the Minnesota Legislature to give $2,000 gift cards to eligible Minnesotans who “responsibly refuse” COVID-19 vaccinations for their children. Jensen, a medical doctor and former state senator, says his proposal is the best way to help families without resorting to “sick Nazi-like forced medical experimentation of the Walz regime.”
“We’re putting out a call for patriotic families who agree to keep their children free of tracker chips and DNA mutilation, and instead serve as beautiful little herd immunity enhancers,” said Jensen surrounded by unmasked young children at a news conference held in conjunction with a protest of a community vaccination event. “As a doctor, I know we must end the so-called virus the way we did before humans went soft, by fearlessly facing it maskless and trusting in God and his gift of natural herd immunity.”
The Jensen proposal comes in the wake of a recent announcement by Governor Tim Walz that his administration will provide $200 gift cards to Minnesota families who agree to vaccinate their 12- to 17-year old children. The families of vaccinated children will also be entered into a lottery for $100,000 in tuition for a Minnesota public college of their choice.
Jensen, who is seeking the Republican endorsement for governor in party caucuses that are expected to be heavily populated by vocal Trump loyalists and vaccine opponents, announced that Minnesotans who don’t get vaccinated will get $2,000 gift cards to TrumpStore, the official retail arm of the Trump Organization.
They also will be entered into a lottery for a scholarship to Trump University. Upon questioning, Jensen clarified that the scholarships will be revert to the Trump Organization in the event that the university is unable to serve the children.
In what Jensen called a prudent move to conserve tax dollars, he also indicated that the offer would not be available to citizens in Hennepin, Ramsey, St. Louis, and Cook counties.
On his website, Former President Trump praised Jensen and his proposal as “a beautiful doctor who knows a great store and university when he sees it and is going to be a great pro-Trump governor of the corrupt election-stealing fake state of Minnesota.”
Note: This post is satire, the use of humor and exaggeration to make a point. Jensen did not make this proposal. Only the part about Walz and his proposal is true.
Truth: The non-partisan fact-checking organization Politifact cited Jensen as a major source of its 2020 “Lie of the Year 2020 about coronavirus downplaying and denial. Politifact noted Jensen’s appearances on Fox News claimed that overflowing hospitals were committing Medicare fraud by overcounting COVID-19 cases. Then-President Donald Trump repeated the unsubstantiated claims as he minimized the seriousness of the COVID pandemic while other wealthy countries around the world were implementing effective public health protections.
Experts say the number of COVID deaths are likely under-counted, not over-counted, due to false negatives on tests and a lack of testing.
In May 2021, Jensen also joined U.S. Capitol insurrectionist Simone Gold and others in suing the federal government to prevent children from receiving COVID-19 vaccines. The lawsuit claims that COVID-19 poses “zero risk” to children. The suit indicates that Jensen believes “it would be reckless to subject anyone in that age group to the experimental COVID-19 vaccine” and that he believes recommending that children get vaccinated “would violate his oath as a doctor and place him in an untenable position.”
Data from the American Academy of Pediatrics shows that more than 6 million children have tested positive for Covid since the beginning of the pandemic. While children are less likely to get hospitalized and die than adults, it does happen. Children also help spread the virus to more vulnerable people.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) , 77.9% of Minnesota adults (18+) have been vaccinated.
Minnesota Republicans are falling all over themselves to the appeal to non-maskers and non-vaxers who they apparently believe, probably correctly, will make up a majority of Republican caucus participants in the 2022 election cycle. They’re obsessed with the people in their partisan echo chambers.
Take Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott Jensen, MD, who made his name in conservative politics by questioning how serious a threat COVID was and suing to keep life-saving vaccines away from young people. Jensen is calling for businesses and citizens to engage in “civil disobedience” by ignoring experts’ vaccine and mask recommendations and requirements.
The physician turned politician who is under investigation by the Minnesota Board of Medical Practice for spreading misinformation about COVID19, also wants to pass legislation to make Minnesota something called a “health freedom sanctuary state.” Dr. J was light on details about what this would mean for Minnesotans, but presumably it would ensure we all have the sacred right to infect and kill others.
Jensen is hardly alone. Throughout the pandemic, Minnesota Republicans at the state and local level have continually questioned the need for measures to protect Minnesotans against COVID. They have advocated freedom-to-infect positions similar to those used by neighboring deep red state South Dakota, which has by far the worst per capita COVID death rate in the midwest region (236 COVID deaths per 100,000 residents). Meanwhile, Governor Tim Walz’s Minnesota has one of the best in the region (142 COVID deaths per 100,000 residents).
Being opposed to masking and vaccinating is another issue that looks to be a savvy political move for Republicans during party caucuses and primaries, but potentially disastrous when it comes time to win a plurality in general elections, where Democratic and independent voters get their say.
After all, about 75 percent of Minnesotans over age 12 now have at least one dose of vaccine, and that number will be higher by election day. And national polls show large majorities of Americans back extremely tough restrictions.
64 percent support state and local governments requiring masks to be worn in all public places.
59 percent support requiring teachers to wear masks in schools.
58 percent support requiring students to wear masks in schools.
57 percent support limiting travel on airplanes to vaccinated people.
51 percent support limiting attendance to bars and restaurants to vaccinated people.
56 percent support limiting crowded gatherings — movies, sporting events, concerts– to vaccinated people.
60 percent support requiring vaccines for federal government and large business employees.
At a time when 80 percent of Americans are concerned about the spread of the COVID19 Delta variant, Minnesota Republicans are hell-bent on making opposition to restrictions their centerpiece issue. These surveys show that only about one-quarter to one-third of Americans agree with Republicans, with the remaining respondents unsure.
Oh and by the way, Minnesota’s DFL Governor Tim Walz, the person Republicans portray as being way too radical on COVID restrictions, hasn’t supported anything anywhere near as restrictive as the previously mentioned widely popular measures. Not even close. And since Republicans stripped Walz of his emergency powers in the spring of 2021, he hasn’t been able to do much of anything to protect Minnesotans.
Even if opposing safe and effective COVID protections during the deadliest pandemic in a century were savvy on a political level, it would be morally unconscionable. But it’s every bit as indefensible politically as it is morally.
Many Minnesota news outlets have covered the fact that South Dakota’s Sturgis Motorcycle Rally is once again serving as a COVID-19 super-spreader event that is putting the needs of profit over people. For instance, the Star Tribune put this excellent article on it’s front page on August 4, 2021:
“Crowds of bikers are rumbling their way towards South Dakota’s Black Hills this week, raising fears that COVID-19 infections will be unleashed among the 700,000 people expected to show up at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally.
But public health experts warned the massive gathering revved the virus far beyond those who chose to attend. One team of economists argued that the rally set off a chain reaction that resulted in 250,000 cases nationwide. However, that paper was not peer reviewed and was criticized by some top epidemiologists — as well as some bikers — for overestimating the rally’s impact.
While it’s not clear how many cases can be blamed on last year’s rally, it coincided with the start of a sharp increase across the Great Plains that ultimately crescendoed in a deadly winter.
The gathering could potentially power a fresh wave of infections like the one that is currently shattering hospitalization records in parts of the South, said Dr. Michael Osterholm, the director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy.
“I understand how people want to move on from this pandemic — God knows I want to — but the reality is you can’t ignore it,” he said. “You can’t just tell the virus you’re done with it.”
That’s responsible in-depth reporting. South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem and South Dakota business leaders should be held accountable for putting people in danger to ensure that their local businesses continue to rake in $800 million in sales.
After all, 700,000 coming to Sturgis is an awful lot of people. But you want to know what is more people? 2,046,533. That’s the number of people who attended the Minnesota State Fair in 2019, the last time it was held.
Many State Fair attendees will be coming from rural counties where vaccination rates are pathetically low, such as Clearwater County, where only 33 percent are fully vaccinated. Remember that while you visit with that nice young man in the dairy barn.
Compared to Sturgis, we aren’t hearing the same level of concern raised by the local media about the what has long been billed as the “Great Minnesota Get Together.” For example, buried in paragraph nine of the August 4 article lambasting Sturgis you will find a passing mention of “state fairs.” That’s it.
To be fair, the Star Tribune did cover this public health-oriented criticism of the Fair:
“A state agency that advocates for Minnesotans with disabilities has announced plans to boycott the Minnesota State Fair over the absence of mask mandates and other safety measures that would help contain the possible spread of the coronavirus.
In a strongly worded letter, the Minnesota Council on Disability criticized state leaders for not requiring masks, vaccines or crowd limits at this year’s fair, which begins in two weeks. As justification for boycotting the 12-day event, the organization cited a recent surge in COVID-19 infections and hospitalizations, largely driven by the highly contagious delta variant.”
But this is the exception to the rule from local news outlets. The rule is endless giddy promotion, both of the unpaid and paid variety, of the Great Minnesota Infect Together. What new foods will there be? What amazing bands should we all be traveling to see? How thrilled are Minnesotans to be attending and “back to normal?”
These State Fair promotions appear alongside national articles reporting that on the dawn of schools re-opening the level of hospitalizations of children for COVID is at a pandemic high. What’s wrong with this picture?
To be sure, Sturgis and the Minnesota State Fair aren’t equivalent. But both draw people from a large area to attend a multi-day shoulder-to-shoulder event with substantial indoor components. This is not exactly what the doctor (Fauci) ordered.
Is the under-reporting of the State Fair public health threat due to the heavy State Fair advertising in news outlets? A lack of courage to criticize Minnesota’s ultimate pop culture sacred cow? Something else?
Whatever is driving it, it’s not the Minnesota news media’s finest hour.
Two of the things that are most celebrated about our elite athlete heroes are “always puts team first” and “always respects the fans.” How often have we heard such gushing clichés in sports journalism and chatter? It seems nothing is more celebrated and revered than proving loyalty to fans and team.
Yet when it comes to COVID-19 vaccinations, a small but significant group of NFL players are refusing to say whether they’re vaccinated, which presumably means that most of them are not vaccinated.
Three of the most important members of the Minnesota Vikings fall into that category — quarterback Kirk Cousins, wide receiver Adam Thielen, and safety Harrison Smith. These are not just any players. This is the Vikings’ highest paid player, their beloved over-achieving homie, and their longest serving player who has been selected for five Pro Bowls.
Last September, when asked about COVID-19, Cousins was cavalier about a disease that has killed an estimated 3 million people worldwide. Here is what Cousins told podcaster Kyle Brandt, when Brandt asked an impressively difficult to evade question: “On a spectrum of one – masks are stupid and you’re all a bunch of lemmings – and ten is ‘I’m not leaving my master bathroom for the next 10 years. Where do you land?”
“I’m not going to call anybody stupid for the trouble it could get me in,” Cousins responded. “But I’m about a .0001.”
In the local sports news coverage and talk I’m consuming, I’m mostly hearing defense of athletes making the decision to forgo getting vaccinations, which have proven remarkably safe and effective after over 3 billion doses worldwide. I’m paraphrasing, but I’m hearing a lot of this kind of thing from fans, analysts, and journalists about unvaccinated NFL players, even from people who have vaccinated themselves:
“It’s their body, so how dare anyone question their personal decision!”
“They’re young and in prime condition, so I competely understand why they wouldn’t bother.”
“How can the NFL suits punish them for their personal or religious decision?”
Explanatory Note: The alleged “punishment” is that the NFL has some pretty basic public health restrictions for unvaccinated players. As I understand them, they can’t eat with the rest of the vaccinated team, don’t have as much freedom to be in crowds when traveling, need to wear masks in many situations, and can be fined for violating the public health protocols. Quite responsibly, the NFL is trying to limit spread from these unvaccinated players, but many players and fans view this as punishment.
Team First?
But hold on, what about that all-important “always puts team first” standard that we constantly spotlight when it comes to our pedestaled athletes?
To be clear, putting yourself at risk of getting sick or quarantined means putting yourself at risk of not being there for your team. Would we be forgiving if an athlete insisted on engaging in other types o risky behaviors that threatens their ability to be present for their teammates at practices or game day, such as bull-riding, motor cross racing, free solo climbing, or chronic binge-drinking?
And remember, this is an infectious disease that often spreads asymptomatically, unbeknownst to the spreader. So when tough talkin’ Kirk “If I Die, I Die” Cousins risks infection, remember that means that he also is selfishly putting unvaccinated teammates at significant risk. If any of those players miss a game or games, or get harmed, it will very likely hurt their team. If all three of them miss games, the problem for the team could quickly become catastrophic.
So much for “team first.”
Respecting The Fans?
And then what about that “always respects the fans” standard. Even if the athlete is ignorant enough to feel safe being unvaccinated, what about the tens of thousands of adoring fans per week with whom they are sharing the buildings? You know, the elated fans, many with their risk-regulating amygdala pickled, desperate to get as close to them as possible? You know, the people who make your extravagant salary and lifestyle possible? Is knowingly putting them at risk of being maimed or killed by the deadliest virus in a century really “respecting the fans?”
“Yeah, but players shouldn’t be forced to be vaccinated,” say the athlete worshipping journalists, analysts, and fans. I hear this one a lot. That goes without saying. It’s a “straw man,” an extreme argument that virtually no one is making, but is trotted out because it’s easy and popular to knock down.
But I’m not talking about mandating vaccinations, and neither is anybody at the NFL or Centers for Disease Control (CDC). I’m just talking about doing the right thing for yourself, your loved ones, your community, your team, and your fans.
I don’t care how well they play this year, I don’t want to hear any more of the cliches about these unvaccinated athletes always putting their team and fans first. Because right now, we’re seeing what they’re really made of. Their selfish actions are speaking much more loudly than their sports cliché words.
