NFLPA tells NFL “I told you so” on daily testing for vaccinated players

Posted by Mike Florio on December 15, 2021, 1:21 PM EST
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In September, the NFL Players Association urged the league to resume daily COVID testing of all players. The NFL decided not to do so.

Now, the NFLPA is telling the league “I told you so.”

“The NFL decided to take away a critical weapon in our fight against the transmission of COVID-19 despite our union’s call for daily testing months ago,” the union said on Twitter. “We’re talking to our player leadership and to the NFL about potential changes to the protocols so that we can complete the season.”

The tweet includes a quote from NFLPA president and Browns center JC Tretter from September 7, in which Tretter points out the logical flaws of testing vaccinated players once per week.

“For up to six days, the virus spreads throughout the facility with no one knowing,” Tretter said. “When it gets to the following Monday, the teams resumes testing and 10+ players and staff test positive.”

He’s right. Players should be tested daily, regardless of status. As the NFL tries to hold the 2021 season together, it’s easy to change back to daily testing. Hopefully, that — and other steps — will be taken, immediately.

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34 responses to “NFLPA tells NFL “I told you so” on daily testing for vaccinated players”

  1. They should have done that right from the get-go, not create rules based on vaccination status.

  2. The testing schedule was to reward vaccinated players and punish or inconvenience unvaccinated ones.

  3. And yet if I raise so much as one ill-reasoned peep about the vaccine’s efficacy I’m told to leave it to the “experts”…. Right

  4. Someone with two vaccines and two booster shots carries just as much viral load of COVId when infected as someone who is completely unvaccinated. The vaccines and booster shots in no way affect transmission of the virus….

  7. I think they should go the opposite way and not test a player unless he has symptoms. If the general public was tested as often as a pro athlete the whole country would grind to a halt for no real reason.

  8. Of course if the NFLPA felt that strongly that daily testing should be done, they could have pushed for it more or done it for their players themselves.

  9. I know this isn’t a completely relevant comment but there’s something laughable about the NFLPA trying to strut its stuff on the NFL when basically has been the good cop to the NFL’s bad cop and overall sucks as a Player’s Association, worst one out of all the major sports in this country.

    Broken clock can be right sometimes though.

  10. The league wanted to incentivize players to get the vaccine. Understandable. At this point, those who are willing to get it have done so. There’s no longer any reason to maintain a policy that incentivizes jumping on a ship that’s already sailed.
    Go back to testing daily. It’s a no-brainer.

  11. There likely isn’t one player who would have agreed to daily testing even though publicly that’s what they said.

  12. On the flip side, the NFL did that rule to try to get players to get vaxxed. Had the testing been done every day I’m sure a good number of players would’ve thought that it was counterproductive wouldve put the vaccine in the back burner.

  16. The NFLPA is right. But they still would have run into resistance in this matter from unvaccinated players.

  17. Instead of making different idiotic rules for vax/unvax’d…the NFL needs to put their politics aside (for once) and just test everyone like the NFLPA suggested in the first place.

  19. Welcome to the I-told-you-so generation.

    It surely does feel good to tell everyone how so very right you were and how everyone should have listened to you.

    Charming.

  20. Urging is nice. Perhaps the NFLPA can convince their union members to hold out for more control over “player safety issues” next time the contract is up. But based on the past, the promise of $$$ will stop all that quickly. Oh well.

  22. There’s zero reason that the NFLPA couldn’t test players daily themselves. Truthfully they just want to limit the pressure to get vaccinated or boosters. Everyone would rather not know when someone is positive

  23. The NFLPA doesn’t have a history of being right too often. At some point, you take what they say and do the opposite.

  26. How about this: everyone in the league gets vaccinated and they scrap testing and just play.

  29. But, but, but, but, but I thought the vaccine gives you a competitive advantage? Oops…Don’t see many people eating crow though? Guess we’ll all just forget about it.

  30. They shouldn’t be testing at all unless there are symptoms. Most of these players are asymptomatic. Why should they have to miss a game when they are not sick?

  33. How about don’t test unless you have symptoms. That’s what the world should be doing. And live a healthy lifestyle, and be free to choose the variety of options we have have available based on our individual health, situations, needs and beliefs. These athletes are in almost zero…literally almost zero danger. And those in danger have options of several vaccines, boosters, masking, staying home, therapeutics, etc. We need to start living again.

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