This may come as a surprise to some of you Packers fans, but there were a lot of people who were extremely happy that Green Bay lost on Saturday night. I’m not talking about disgruntled and jealous Bears and Vikings fans, or Rams and Buccaneers fans hoping their team could host the NFC Championship Game. Instead Twitter was lit up Saturday night with people who cover the NFL, WSPN talking heads, political pundits, and even comedians celebrating the Packers loss—all because they equated it to proof that Aaron Rodgers’ stance on vaccinations and covid treatments are inherently wrong.
Among the posts that I saw were “Science 1, Aaron Rodgers 0”, “Aaron Rodgers is making good on his promise not to play in the super bowl to protest the league’s stance on vaccination”, “Apparently Ivermectin doesn’t cure (expletive) special teams play”, and “We should call the San Francisco defense ‘the woke mob’ because they are shutting down Aaron Rodgers”.
While that last one made me laugh, the hundreds of others made me wonder “how did we get to the point that the result of a football game somehow reinforces our self-beliefs about the medical efficacy of vaccines?” Do those tweeters really believe that Aaron Rodgers lost because he is not vaccinated? You could certainly make that argument for the Kansas City game during the regular season—which the packers lost primarily because Aaron was out with covid—which he contracted because he refused to get vaccinated.
But we don’t know if every member of the 49ers is vaccinated. What if Robbie Gould didn’t get the shots—would they have rooted for him to miss that final field goal so that he wouldn’t be celebrated for winning the game? Nick Bosa initially said publicly that he did not plan to get vaccinated—then did so after the start of training camp. Should he be cheered for doing so, or jeered for initially questioning the need to do so?
You know, that ‘woke mob’ reference was not only funny, it was spot on—as the new attitude is that “if that person doesn’t believe exactly the same things that i do—that person is not entitled to any form of success in their life. And that goes for behavior I don’t like and comments that I find offensive too.”
As a Steelers fan, I saw a different version of the same thing the Saturday before, when Pittsburgh lost to Kansas City in the AFC wild card game. You may recall that Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisbeger was twice accused of sexual assault. He was sued by a casino worker in 2009 claiming he touched her without permission—and then in 2010 a woman claimed Roethlisberger assaulted her in a bar bathroom. In neither case was Big Ben charged with any crimes—although there were out of court settlements and payments.
But as the Steelers were getting their butts kicked, female sports reporters were taking to social media with posts like “Sure is a bad night for rapists” and “Ironic that in his final game, Big Ben is having someone else impose their will upon him.”
If rooting interests are now going to be determined by strictly off the field reasons and personal beliefs, then I’d like to see some renegade franchises emerge in the future. Like the Oakland Raiders of the 1970’s or the Bad Boy Detroit Pistons of the 1980’s. Start the next NFL season assembling a roster of guys that are almost exclusively anti-vaxxers. Or put together a squad of guys that won’t take a knee during the national anthem. Let’s go full bore and make every night a mini-morality play with clearly-identified forces of good and evil doing battle on the field or the court or the ice. And then the president can decide if they should come to the white house to be hailed as heroes of society—of if they should be shunned because they “send the wrong message”.
Of course, Aaron Rodgers may see the light and get the jab this off-season—just in case the side effects include your coach committing to running the football in arctic conditions and special teams play that doesn’t resemble third-grade flag football action.
