Ex-Cowboy Michael Irvin Lashes Out at NFL for Players Refusing Covid Jab: Unvaccinated Means You Don’t Want to Win
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON – OCTOBER 03: HOF wide receiver Michael Irvin of the Dallas Cowboys watches the game against the Seattle Seahawks and the Los Angeles Rams at CenturyLink Field on October 03, 2019 in Seattle, Washington. The Seattle Seahawks top the Los Angeles Rams 30-29. (Photo by Alika Jenner/Getty Images)
With NFL training camps starting to open this week, just 13 of the league’s 32 teams were able to reach the 85 percent vaccine threshold which allows for reduced Covid-19 restrictions.
Among the 19 teams that failed to reach the 85 percent marker is the Dallas Cowboys, angering their former star wide receiver and current NFL Network analyst Michael Irvin. The three-time Super Bowl champ is having a hard time relating players who choose not to get vaccinated, because he believes they should do whatever it takes to win. Teams who hit the 85 percent vaccinated threshold will have a sizable advantage over those who don’t reach the mark.
“It should upset them,” Irvin said of the Cowboys, according to Todd Archer of ESPN. “Dude, you’re not thinking right. You’re not thinking right. Whatever you got, I don’t give a damn. … Nothing else can be more important. You’re not going to get this [winning a Super Bowl] easily. Nothing else could be more important. … Jimmy [Johnson] made that abundantly clear [during Irvin’s playing career]. Nothing else is more important. And not being one of the [teams] says there’s other things to a great number of people on this team that are more important than winning championships, and that makes me worried.”
Irvin added that if he were in the locker room of a team that hasn’t yet reached the 85 percent threshold, he would be focused on trying to get his teammates vaccinated.
“If you’re not one of them teams [at the threshold], are you really thinking about winning a championship? You see what I’m saying,” Irving continued. “OK, so now if you’re not getting vaccinated and you got all these other teams that are getting vaccinated.”
“Somebody in that damn locker room [should say], ‘Hey man, we’re going to have a chance, are you vaccinated?’” Irvin said. “Let’s go through this because this could be a two-week healthy dude missing games, and in this league, this ain’t the NBA. In this league that could be it for you. The right person misses two weeks, that’s it. Your ass is out.”
Teams have brought in experts to help answer any questions players might have, but there remains a hesitancy to get vaccinated, with Buffalo Bills wide receiver Cole Beasley being among the most vocal. “I may die of covid, but I’d rather die actually living,” Beasley wrote last month in a statement announcing he will not get vaccinated.
According to an ESPN report, as of last Friday the Indianapolis Colts and Washington Football Team failed to have even 50 percent of its players get vaccinated against Covid. In contrast, Pittsburgh, Miami, Carolina and Denver have the league’s highest vaccination rates.
