NFL’s latest COVID-19 vaccine policy pits D.J. Reed’s choice vs. Seahawks’ competitiveness
The NFL’s COVID-19 vaccination policy is now pitting each player’s choice against his team’s competitiveness.
It appears the push by the league — including, loudly, Seahawks coach Pete Carroll— to get almost everyone vaccinated to secure bottom line of winning games and earning paychecks in 2021 is working.
Even if the league is essentially strong-arming its players to do it.
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell sent a memorandum to all 32 teams Thursday that ups the ante on players getting the COVID-19 vaccine in time for the start of the season in September. The league told teams they could potentially forfeit a game due to a COVID-19 outbreak among non-vaccinated players — and that in that case, players on both teams would not get paid that game week.
“As we learned last year, we can play a full season if we maintain a firm commitment to adhering to our health and safety protocols and to making needed adjustments in response to changing conditions,” Goodell said in the memo to teams, as obtained and reported by The Associated Press.
“If a game can’t be rescheduled and is canceled due to a COVID outbreak among non-vaccinated players on one of the competing teams, the team with the outbreak will forfeit and will be deemed to have played 16 games for purposes of draft, waiver priority, etc,” Goodell said in the memo.
For purposes of playoff seeding, the forfeiting team will be credited with a loss and the opposing team gets a win.
That got the players’ attention.
“I didn’t want to get the vaccine,” Seahawks cornerback D.J. Reed posted on his Twitter account Thursday afternoon. “We don’t know the long term effects. If you have the vaccine you can still catch COVID. The NFL & NFLPA made getting the vaccine a competitive advantage. I just got my vaccine because I don’t want to hinder my team, idk how I feel about that.”
He’s not alone.
“Never thought I would say this,” Arizona Cardinals All-Pro wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins wrote on Twitter, “But being put in a position to hurt my team because I don’t want to partake in the vaccine is making me question my future in the @Nfl.”
Not long after he wrote that, Hopkins deleted that post.
Indeed, the NFL has made getting a COVID-19 vaccine a competitive issue, in an effort to prod those players who remain reluctant one week before most training camps begin.
Even before Thursday’s COVID memo to teams, two distinct worlds were emerging within the NFL for players this season. Each club could — and in some cases likely will— essentially have two teams within its team.
That is, unless a team can be almost 100% vaccinated. The league and global health experts define that as past two weeks since a person’s last shot.
The Seahawks’ vaccine push
Carroll has set a goal for his Seahawks players to be 100% vaccinated by the start of training camp. That’s Tuesday, at team headquarters in Renton.
Seattle was the league’s only team without a positive COVID-19 test last year, when the league tested its players daily from late July through January.
Seahawks players—and their families — were offered vaccines at the team facility in May and June in order to make the process convenient.
As of last month the Seahawks were at about 70% of players vaccinated, according to league sources.
Carroll said his team still had a chance to reach his 100% goal. It would take a surge of players getting their first vaccination during the initial two weeks of their six-week break between the team’s mandatory minicamp and the beginning of training camp.
The NFL says more than half its teams have COVID-19 vaccination rates greater than 80% of their players. The league says more than 75% of players are in the process of being vaccinated.
Nearly all clubs have vaccinated 100% of their Tier 1 and 2 staffs. Teams have appropriate protocols set up for staffers who have not been vaccinated, consistent with the guidance given in April. Vaccinated staff are going to return to nearly normal, pre-pandemic, operations at team facilities this season—at least as normal as can be in 2021.
“All you’ve got to do is, you’ve got to figure out what rules you want to follow,” Seahawks wide receiver Tyler Lockett, the team’s player representative to the NFL Players’ Association (NFLPA), said last month.
“All is know is, I got vaccinated, so I’ve got freedoms.”
The league told teams for this season vaccinated players no longer will have daily COVID-19 testing, no travel restrictions, no prohibitions on access to the locker room, team dining area, team planes, hotels or having visitors. Basically, they will be returning as close to pre-pandemic normal as is possible in 2021.
Those who begin training camp at the end of July and the season in September not vaccinated?
For them, it will be 2020 all over again.
Players not vaccinated will be required to continue the daily testing all players and staff had to enter the team facility each work day last year. Vaccinated players will get tested only every two weeks, the NFL says.
The unvaccinated will be required to wear masks inside team headquarters and during team travel, including on buses and planes. They must remain socially distant from others inside the facility, including in the locker room, weight room and dining room. They can’t eat with teammates. They can’t use the team’s sauna or steam room. Unlike the vaccinated, non-vaccinated players cannot leave the team hotel or interact with anyone in person outside the team travel party while on the road. They are not permitted to participate in social or even commercial and promotional events.
Non-vaccinated players can be fined for violating any of these policies.
Most notable: A potential competitive situation will develop if a non-vaccinated player is exposed to someone who has tested positive for the coronavirus. That exposed player will have to quarantine for multiple days, including perhaps through games. A vaccinated player will not have to quarantine if he is exposed to a positive COVID-19 person.
“An unvaccinated player could lose play time,” Carroll said. “He could lose access to the team.
“That’s an issue that they have to deal with as they make their final choices here on how to handle it.”
The rates and Reed
As of mid-June, before the league’s six-week hiatus before training camps, 16 NFL teams had at least 50 of their 90 players fully vaccinated so far. Of the other half below 50 players, a few are markedly lower. The Washington Post reported the teams with the lowest number of vaccinated players include the Los Angeles Chargers, Jacksonville, the Arizona Cardinals and Indianapolis.
The Seahawks open the season at the Colts Sept. 12.
Seattle was in the top half of the league. Carroll said his club was just below a handful of teams with the most vaccinated players.
Reed was one of those who had not been vaccinated. He said last month he needed to get more information on COVID-19 vaccines.
“Oh, man, you are going to get me in trouble,” Reed said in June, smiling and laughing. “But I am going to say it:
“Obviously, we want to get everybody vaccinated. But there are a couple guys that still aren’t sure, just because they kind of feel like it’s something that’s new and they want to know that it’s OK to get it. We definitely, as an organization, are making a push for it.
“Me, personally, I’m still kind of waiting for those answers, same as a couple others. I’m not opposed to getting it, but I just want to learn more about it and get more research done.
“We’ll see. I’m 50-50, honestly.”
Not anymore.
The NFL made that decision for him. Whether Reed liked it—or, apparently, not.
This story was originally published July 22, 2021 at 2:04 PM.
