Fans will be back in the stands, and things are slowly returning to normal, but COVID-19 will still loom over the 2021 NFL season in some capacity. On Wednesday afternoon, the league and the NFLPA agreed to the COVID protocols for the upcoming season, a source told Tom Pelissero of NFL Network (Twitter link).
There are going to be two sets of rules for those who have been vaccinated and those who haven’t been. Pelissero tweeted out the memo detailing the restrictions for unvaccinated players, and they’re significant. Unvaccinated players will have to be tested every day, wear masks in the facility, and travel to road games separately. When on the road they can’t have guests at their hotels or see friends and family. As Pelissero writes in his thread, it essentially boils down to “fly by yourself and sit in your room until kickoff.”
Importantly, players who have been vaccinated won’t have to isolate for five days if they’re deemed a high-risk close contact to someone who tests positive. Those close contact isolations caused a lot of key players to miss games in 2020.
Unvaccinated players will also be hit with fines of up to $50K for things like going to bars or large gatherings. Clearly, the league is doing everything they can to push players to get vaccinated without actually mandating it.
As for what the numbers look like, Pelissero tweeted yesterday that a source told him over 50 percent of NFL players had received at least a first dose of a vaccine. He added that every team has at least 90 percent of their Tier 1/2 staff vaccinated, so clearly coaches and employees are getting it at a higher rate than players. 16 of 32 teams have had at least 51 of the 90 players on their offseason rosters vaccinated.
It’s a lot to digest, and there are significant implications here. A number of high profile players have indicated they aren’t planning on getting the vaccine, so it’ll be interesting to see how this all shakes out. If one thing is for certain, it’s that there will be some drama to come as a result of these new protocols.
Two sets of rules only insures that the situation evolves into a classic Goodell cluster___.
The players union should have insisted on no testing for vaccinated players. They did their part and shouldn’t be subjected to having things shoved up their noses.
Where did it say that vaccinated players had to be tested every day?
And I agree with your point that they should be subject to testing after getting the vaccine.
I agree with your point but where does it say that vaccinated players need to be tested every day?
Taylor Decker, Detroit Lions Left Tackle is not vaccinated and won’t get vaccinated. Don’t understand why he’s made this decision and if (when) he catches Covid you can chalk it up to the Karma Bus picking up another passenger. No sympathy for players who go unvaccinated.
Some people don’t want to become sheep. They believe in an individuals right to decide what goes into their body and what does not. Goodell’s approach is to pit one group against another and that will only make a bad situation worse.
While I totally understand some people are concerned about the long-term effects of a relatively untested vaccine, most of the people I know who won’t get vaccinated don’t exactly treat their bodies like a temple. Seems a little hypocritical to complain about the long-term effects when someone is like 40lbs overweight, drinking their 10th beer of the night, smoking a cigarette, and does drugs on occasion. Just generalizing about the people I know who are anti-vax.
But, see, they know about diabetes, cirrhosis, cancer and overdoses.
They are OK with dying from something as long as it has a longer evidentiary track record.
@lemon why does taking a vaccine make you a sheep? Please explain.
As others have mentioned, there is just way too much conflicting information (even among so called experts) on what these vaccines are doing inside the body. Under those circumstances you become a sheep if you blindly accept that the politicians and big pharma have your best interests at heart.
Some people dont want to take something not fully approved by the FDA which means it is not fully tested hence we are their guinea pigs for this. They only emergency authorize it as an emergency use which protects them from taking responsibility if anything goes wrong.
Or how about it was released early
since we were in a pandemic. Wasn’t just given emergency approval for liability reasons. There is a FDA process and both the major vaccines are in process and should have full FDA approval this summer.
The people who use the “these vaccines are new and unproven” line would have a point…if at any point they actually read the available evidence or showed an interest in following up as the evidence mounts.
The mRNA vaccines are years in development and were luckily ready to use just in time for Covid. One of the most important medical advances in decades.
If NFL fans don’t want anything to do with what Woody Johnson is selling, so be it, that’s not unreasonable given the Jets.
This is true. I work in medical research and it’s very true.
This is not good. Where I live in New York, they are starting to mandate, without coming out and forcing us to get the vaccine, by restricting things the unvaccinated can do. Even corporations are now coming out and saying don’t even apply or continue to work here if you are not vaccinated.
The problem is, where does it stop?
It stops with getting vaccinated…
No shoes, no shirt, no service.
The vaccinated are at no lesser risk of getting infected and infecting others – thus the quarantine rules are worthless.
Those who have been vaccinated ARE at a significantly lower risk of getting infected and infecting others. They did not make this claim early on because we didn’t have enough data, but…it cuts down transmission, too.
After decreasing across the board for months (as vaccination increased), infection rates recently plateaued for a while. But now, with increased Delta variant (the one from India) in the US, there are two realities. The rates are still decreasing in heavily vaccinated states while they are increasing in states with low vaccination rates.
Basic math, if vaccines didn’t cut down on transmission, then case numbers wouldn’t have dropped (significantly) in the past 4 to 5 months. They have.
Where do you get your information? I would find another source.