Plenty of players are resisting the COVID-19 vaccine, throwing out hollow explanations like “I need to do more research,” while doing none at all. Plenty of players are getting the vaccine, however.
Via Peter King of Football Morning in America, one team already has 65 of 90 players fully vaccinated.
As King notes, that’s 72 percent of the roster. With extra benefits likely for teams that reach an 85-percent threshold for vaccinations, the team with 65 players vaccinated needs only 12 of the remaining 25 to get stuck in order to get to 85 percent of the 90-man roster.
Regardless of any benefits that would attach to a team that gets to 85 percent, the individual benefits could be enough to get players to choose to take the vaccine. Wrote King, paraphrasing the coach whose team has gotten to 65 vaccinated players, “Once players realize that being vaccinated will allow them the freedom to move around without masks, to be able to dine out with teammates and to not have to wake up early every morning to be tested, he thinks his team has a very good chance to be at 85 percent.”
King points to another important inducement for getting vaccinated. Any players who aren’t vaccinated will be required to stay in town during the bye week and be tested every day.
For plenty of players, that could be the one item of research that gets them to do it.