Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers called out those who won’t vote for him for most valuable player of the year due to his COVID-19 vaccination status.
Pro Football Weekly Executive Editor Hub Arkush, one of the 50 voters who is scheduled to vote on the NFL’s 2021 season MVP, said he will not cast a vote for Rodgers, despite his outstanding season, due to the quarterback’s vaccination controversy.
“I don’t think you can be the biggest jerk in the league and punish your team and your organization and your fan base the way he did and be the Most Valuable Player,” Arkush said. “Has he been the most valuable on the field? Yeah, you could make that argument, but I don’t think he is clearly that much more valuable than Jonathan Taylor or Cooper Kupp or maybe even Tom Brady. And so, from where I sit, the rest of it is why he’s not gonna be my choice.”
Rodgers first came under fire in the fall after he contracted COVID-19. The quarterback previously told an over-trusting press pool that “I’ve been immunized” against COVID-19 but sports media pundits later lambasted him for spreading “misinformation” after he admitted that he has been hesitant to obtain the jab for medical reasons.
“I think he’s a bum. He’s an absolute bum. You don’t know me. I don’t know who he is. No one knew who he was probably until yesterday’s comments,” Rodgers said in response to Arkush’s words, making a joke about creating the “most vaccinated player” award. “But to say he had his mind made up in the summertime, in the offseason that, you know, I had zero chance of winning MVP — my opinion should exclude, you know, future votes.”
Rodgers said Arkush’s real problem with him isn’t that he’s “the biggest jerk in the league,” it’s that the star quarterback isn’t vaccinated.
“He doesn’t know anything about me. I’ve never met him, never had lunch with him. I’ve never had an interview with him. His problem is I’m not vaccinated,” Rodgers said. “It’s unfortunate that those sentiments, it’s surprising that he would even say that to be honest.”
Rodgers previously expressed his belief that getting the COVID-19 shot is a “personal decision” and that people should not be judged or canceled for that decision.
“That is what the media has been trying to do, they’re trying to shame and out and cancel all of us non-vaccinated people, call us selfish,” he said on “The Pat McAfee Show” in November. “I mean that’s the propaganda line too now: You’re selfish for making a decision that’s in the best interest of your body.”
