The NFL has incentivized getting the COVID-19 vaccine — so why is a vocal minority still so hesitant?

CHICAGO — Ron Rivera remains agitated. “Beyond frustrated,” to use his exact words. A year after contracting squamous cell cancer and battling it into remission, the coach of the Washington Football Team is aware his compromised immune system could make him more vulnerable to COVID-19. Yet as training camp began this week, barely half of Rivera’s players were vaccinated, representing an extreme case of hesitancy in the NFL.

That resistance hasn’t sat well with the 59-year old coach, who became fully vaccinated earlier this year but remains cognizant of his health concerns and the risks that others around him might present.

“I hope we can get to these guys and get them to understand that really it’s not just for them but it’s for the people around them,” Rivera said Tuesday. “That’s the thing where I think hopefully we will get their attention — that this is not just for them but for the folks around them.”

A day later, Buffalo Bills receiver Cole Beasley sat down with reporters at training camp and attempted to explain at least one viewpoint on why some players continue running away from the opportunity to get vaccinated like it’s an angry defender on third down.

Beasley, who has become the megaphone on vaccine resistance in the NFL with a flurry of outspoken social media posts, read from a 403-word statement Wednesday.

“The issue at hand is information is being withheld from players in order for a player to be swayed in a direction he may not be comfortable with,” Beasley said. “When dealing with a player’s health and safety, there should be complete transparency regarding information that is vital in the decision-making process. Without having all the proper information, a player can feel misguided and unsure about a very personal choice. It makes a player feel unprotected and gives concerns about future topics regarding health and our ability to make educated decisions.”

Beasley, who identified himself as “pro choice” and not “anti-vax” on the topic, declined to field any questions on the issue and wouldn’t specify what information he felt was being withheld from players.

“I said what I said,” he said. “And that’s kind of where I want to leave it.”

Predictably, that monologue sparked another wave of impassioned debate on social media, prolonging a hostile wrestling match that never seems to end.

The NFL remains square in the middle of the nation’s vaccination conversation as training camps have begun and the NFL has modified its COVID-19-related policies to solidify guidelines that differ greatly for vaccinated and unvaccinated players.

Debates involving players such as Beasley, however, might be little more than a high-profile reflection of the discussions and arguments that have been ongoing in society where facts, rumors, scientific data and mistruths remain in a messy pile-up that can prove difficult to sift through.

Still, in some ways the vaccination progress being made within the NFL can be held up as a promising example of how advancement can occur. On Thursday, the NFL’s vice president of communications Brian McCarthy announced that 89.7% of players leaguewide had at least begun the vaccination process and that 19 of 32 teams had surpassed a 90% rate for vaccinated players. Seven of those 19 clubs have passed 95%.

Coaches around the league, who were mandated to get the vaccine to continue coaching, have reached a rate of near 100%. The only known exceptions were Rick Dennison, who opted to give up his position as the offensive line coach of the Minnesota Vikings rather than get vaccinated, and New England Patriots co-offensive line coach Cole Popovich, who stepped away in protest of the league’s rules.

For a variety of reasons, starting with intensified education efforts by the league, the NFL Players Association and teams to better informs players, coaches and staff on vaccines, the NFL’s vaccination rates are well above those of society at large. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows 69.3% of adults in the United States have received at least one vaccination injection to this point.

The NFL, of course, has incentivized players to get vaccinated by emphasizing the relaxed restrictions available to those who do.

‘A personal decision’

The Chicago Bears seem intent on not creating new headlines surrounding the vaccine issue. As players reported to camp Tuesday, general manager Ryan Pace expressed confidence the team would soon surpass the 85% benchmark for vaccinated players.

Still, the Bears haven’t escaped the grasp of COVID-19 yet.

Despite being fully vaccinated, quarterbacks coach John DeFilippo has also missed the team’s first two camp practices after recently contracting COVID-19. The timetable for DeFilippo’s return is unknown. League rules require symptomatic carriers of COVID-19 to miss at least 10 days. Even fully vaccinated and asymptomatic individuals who have tested positive for the virus must produce a pair of negative tests separated by 24 hours in order to return to team facilities.

Overall, Bears players have been reserved in discussing the vaccination issue this week, all united on one talking point when asked about their vaccination statuses.

“That’s between me and the club,” receiver Allen Robinson said.

Added quarterback Andy Dalton: “It’s a personal decision for everybody. Everybody has to make that decision for themselves.”

Nose tackle Eddie Goldman opted out of the 2020 season because of personal health concerns surrounding COVID-19, classified under NFLPA guidelines as being of higher risk medically for complications from the virus. But even after exercising such extreme caution a year ago, the veteran defensive lineman remained unvaccinated at the start of July, according to a source, as he continued seeking more information.

Goldman’s current vaccination status is not officially known. But he did attend his first interview of camp without a mask, a possible indicator he has since received the vaccine. Unvaccinated players risk hefty fines for failing to wear masks inside team facilities.

“I feel like it’s everybody’s personal decision to get the vaccine or not,” Goldman said Wednesday. “I just want everybody to make an educated decision.”

Robinson, who said multiple times throughout the spring that he was still gathering information, was asked Tuesday where he sought his information to help make an informed decision.

“It’s being able to talk to different doctors that I’ve had experiences with and just picking their brains,” Robinson said. “That’s really all you can (do). You can’t really look at too much on social media or talk to your peers too much about it because everybody has whatever kind of information they’ve sought out, which can be true information or it can be false information. So it’s just trying to listen to the best advice I can with a lot of information given from pretty reliable people.”

Outside linebacker Jeremiah Attaochu made extra efforts this spring to research the issue as well and had internal struggles with the decision.

“For me, it was a faith-based decision. I prayed about it,” Attaochu said. “My dad got the vaccine, my mom didn’t. So my family is even divided on it. I just prayed about it and figured out what was best for me.”

Asked directly what choice he ultimately made, Attaochu grinned.

“I’m just going to keep that (to myself),” he said. “But I have my mask off. So you get the idea.”

‘We can trust the medical establishment’

For Dr. Allen Sills, the NFL’s chief medical officer, there are quick ways to simplify what has become a complex issue that often sparks heated debates. Sills, a practicing physician, will happily tell NFL players the same things he tells his regular patients and immediate family members.

“My message is straightforward,” Sills said last week. “I think these are the safest and most effective vaccines that I’ve seen developed certainly during the lifespan of my medical career and perhaps that we have ever had. I know many of the people personally who have been involved in reviewing the regulatory aspects of this and who have reviewed all the data. I trust them and know that they have integrity.

“I believe these vaccines were developed through incredibly sophisticated science and that no steps were skipped in terms of the safety evaluation. While they might seem like they were developed quickly, that simply reflects that the entire world’s medical apparatus was turned on this one task.”

Sills has labeled the COVID-19 vaccines “incredibly safe” and “incredibly effective.”

“I’ve taken it myself,” he added. “I’ve had all of my family members take it. And I would tell anyone who is trying to make their decision that I believe we can trust the medical establishment here. To me, being vaccinated isn’t about politics or one’s world view. It’s simply about being as safe as we possibly can.”

Sills has been pleased with the progress the NFL is making in getting players, coaches and staff vaccinated. He also knows there is more work ahead and wants to make certain efforts to provide credible information, insight and guidance remain a focus for the league, the NFLPA and teams.

“What matters at the end of the day is making sure individuals have their questions answered and making sure they have the most accurate information,” Sills said. “Let’s not get information from Instagram or Facebooks posts. Let’s try to hear from the most reputable authorities about what the real medical facts are and understand the process.

“I’m a big believer that sort of like religion, you don’t shout anyone into belief here. I think these have to be thoughtful discussions that acknowledge the concerns people have. And we have to give space for questions and for skepticism where it exists. But what we can do is provide facts and make sure the entirety of the medical facts are presented and not just small snippets.”

Restricted

Still, while seemingly in agreement that players should be encouraged to become vaccinated, the NFL and the players union seem to be at odds about how to handle the messaging.

The league issued a memo recently detailing how unvaccinated players would continuing operating under 2020 restrictions related to COVID-19 — subject to daily testing, required to wear masks inside team facilities and prohibited from eating with teammates.

Vaccinated players, meanwhile, will start out being tested every 14 days, without having to wear masks and with an ability to interact and roam more freely around team facilities.

Some players saw the league’s differing policies and the manner they were presented as an attempt to coerce them into getting vaccinated.

In a memo posted to the NFLPA website, Cleveland Browns center and union president J.C. Tretter took exception with the league’s approach and encouraged players to make the decision they were most comfortable with.

“Though we believe the vaccine is both safe and effective, players have the choice whether to take it or not,” Tretter wrote. “Unlike among the NFL coaching ranks or in other businesses, the vaccine is not mandated for NFL players.”

Tretter also emphasized, however, that the COVID-19-related restrictions that remain in place for unvaccinated players are not league-driven punishments but safety provisions that the players union fought for a year ago.

“Last year, it was our player leadership that insisted on daily testing,” he wrote. “It was our player leadership that insisted on the NFL forcing clubs to upgrade facilities, use sophisticated contact tracing and create a workplace that was as safe as possible for us. These protocols were not imposed by the NFL; they were imposed by our union leaders. We relied on the advice of leading experts and advocated for their recommendations to become realities.”

For cynics, the NFL’s push to encourage vaccination registers as purely business-driven, pressure of sorts that will help increase the league’s chances of playing its full 272-game regular-season schedule in the 18-week window allotted.

The league has been emphatic in acknowledging that goal of having a 2021 season with as few disruptions as possible and, in last week’s memo, threatened forfeiture to any team that experienced a COVID-19 outbreak among unvaccinated individuals that ultimately caused a game to be canceled with no chance to be rescheduled. In the case of a canceled game, it was noted, players from both teams would not receive their game checks that week.

Still, that scenario seems far-fetched after the league navigated its entire 2020 season at the height of the pandemic and without the aid of vaccines and didn’t cancel a single game.

But for some players, that reality has been too easily overlooked in the vaccination discussion. The 2020 league protocols, after all, with mask wearing and social distancing and contact tracing and other safety-related guidelines firmly in place, largely kept players safe and healthy without any COVID-19-related hospitalizations or deaths and little if any serious illness to speak of.

For some players, continuing to adhere to similar rules still registers as preferable to getting the vaccine.

Risk-reward

For others outside the NFL, the extreme resistance of some players to receive a COVID-19 vaccine remains curious, particularly without offering credible or legitimate reasons for their concerns.

Professional football players, after all, are some of the most risk-tolerant people alive, undeterred by the potential long-term harms of the sport they play. For decades, many players also have unflinchingly used a wide array of painkilling medications, including Toradol, with a “whatever it takes” mentality to stay on the field and an acceptance of the accompanying risks.

Through that lens, the aversion to the COVID-19 vaccine can seem peculiar.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell emphasized in the spring that the league’s push to encourage its personnel to get vaccinated was fully safety-based.

“We do think players and all personnel are safer if they’re vaccinated,” Goodell said. “I think that is true throughout our country and world. I don’t know of a single medical source that is respected that doesn’t believe that and doesn’t believe that vaccines not only work and are effective but are also safe.”

Still, the odds of attaining 100% buy-in from players remain steep. A few hours after issuing his statement at Bills camp Wednesday, Beasley released a profanity-laden hip-hop single on Apple music titled “Heavy 1s.”

On his Twitter post promoting the song, Beasley posted a message that read in part, “I don’t have this constant thirst for acceptance. I DON’T need your approval. … Tell me to shut my mouth our how to live my life, I’ll say no.”

Beasley indicated he would no longer be tweeting until after the Super Bowl.

“If you have any complaints then leave a damn message at the tone and I’ll get back to you never,” he posted. “To all the ones who support living freely as they choose, To all the ones without a care of what life people try to choose for you, I (expletive) with you always no matter how different we are.”

Sills, meanwhile, hopes his medical credentials establish him as a trustworthy resource and has emphasized how the league’s policies have been science-driven with guidance provided from the CDC, public health authorities and other medical experts. He has stressed that the NFL must remain “flexible and adaptable” throughout 2021, monitoring new variants of COVID-19 and the transmission rates in different parts of the country.

Sills also was asked how he would reassure individuals still worried about possible side effects such as heart issues and blood clots that have been documented in rare instances to be tied to COVID-19 vaccines.

“Any time in medicine that we talk about an intervention — whether it’s a surgery or taking a new therapy or anything of that nature — you’re always talking about risks and benefits,” he said. “We have to go through both of those. And we also have to try to place some context on the risks.

“If you’re going to have a surgical procedure that I’m going to do, obviously I can tell you that there is a risk of dying during that surgery. But I have to put it into context of what is that risk. And how strong is that risk compared to the benefit you’re going to realize from that surgery? So while I think we need to acknowledge that there can be side effects, those side effects in my experience and in the view of public health officials are generally quite mild and quite limited. And then you have to balance that out again with what’s the benefit.”