Aaron Rodgers has given us many iconic moments in his football career. However, one moment that stood apart from the rest occurred away from the field in 2021, when he told reporters he had been “immunized” against the coronavirus.
Now, Rodgers says he regrets saying that.
In a soon-to-be-published unauthorized biography, Rodgers told author Ian O’Connor that, while his claim to immunization was the “crux of his appeal,” he would handle the situation differently today.
“If there’s one thing I wish could have gone different, it’s that, because that’s the only thing [critics] could hit me with,” Rodgers says in the book.
As ESPN reports:
In November 2021, the Green Bay Packers‘ four-time league MVP tested positive for COVID-19 as an unvaccinated player and was sidelined for a minimum of 10 days. Rodgers had appealed to the NFL to have his homeopathic treatment regimen qualify him as vaccinated and faced widespread criticism for his misleading remarks. He was turned down.
Three months earlier, at a widely reported preseason news conference, Rodgers told reporters he had been ‘immunized’ and was heavily criticized by fans and much of the media.
Rodgers later said on Pat McAfee Show that his research showed he was allergic to an ingredient — polyethylene glycol, or PEG — in the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, and that he was concerned about reports of adverse medical reactions to the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
In the book Out of the Darkness: The Mystery of Aaron Rodgers, Rodgers details how he would handle the situation today.
“But if I could do it again, I would have said [in August], f*ck the appeal. I’m just going to tell them I’m allergic to PEG, I’m not getting Johnson & Johnson, I’m not going to be vaxxed,'” the Jets QB explained.
“I had an immunization card from my holistic doctor, which looked similar,” Rodgers said, explaining his appeal to the league. “I wasn’t trying to pawn it off as a vaccine card, but I said, ‘Listen, here’s my protocol. Here’s what you can follow to look this up.’ And it was an ongoing appeal. So, if I had just said [I was unvaccinated] in the moment, there’s no chance that the appeal would have been handled the exact same way.”
Rodgers further claimed that if he had been with the Jets in 2021 and subject to the same vaccination requirements that sidelined then-Brooklyn Nets star Kyrie Irving, he would not have done it.
