It’s not like I didn’t know who Aaron Rodgers was before all this.  I mean, he’s engaged to Shailene Woodley!

Kidding.

Not about the engaged part but the fact that, not being much of a football fan or someone who generally follows sports (Note: Though I do like watching a great tennis match), I wouldn’t know or care about a famous NFL receiver .

Kidding again!

I know he’s a halfback.  Um, fullback.

Okay, yes —    QUARTERBACK!

But truly, on this issue and in this news cycle, who cares???

Last night I made dinner for two vaccinated friends and we three multi-vaxxed gay guys all of a certain age talked about three different ways to lie.   

Before I tell you what the three are it’s worth noting upfront we’ve all spent our lives in the entertainment industry where over the years, whether you like it or not, you receive a master class in learning how to recognize and, yeah okay, sometimes execute all three types of untruth-telling.

#1 – Make stuff up.  That’s just saying a lot of unvarnished sh-t that you know isn’t true because it helps you and, well, because you can. 

#2 – Lying by omission.  This is when in answer to a question, or in making a statement, you knowingly leave out facts you are aware are essential and that, if revealed, would prove the exact opposite of the argument you are making or the impression you are trying to make.

#3 – A hybrid of #1 and #2.  Using language that is vague enough to answer a question and technically tell the truth but in just enough of a wiggle room kind of way that enables you to get the reaction and response you want.

Of course, even if you succeed, being this kind of expert wordsmith doesn’t make you George Washington. Rather, you’re just a more polite version of Donald J. Trump.

Someone who joyously engages in #1 (Note: See my crowd size and we won the election by A LOT) but tried to govern us through a pandemic with #2 and various side dishes of #1.  Yeah, it really is that simple. 

Even though it can get incredibly complicated, especially when you’re not a natural born Trumpian-like liar.

Rodgers, the three time NFL MVP who has so far led the Green Bay Packers to a 7-1 winning season, told reporters and media outlets back in August regarding COVID-19 vaccine requirements, that he’d been immunized prior to the season beginning.  (Note: #3) Then quickly, he added:

There’s guys on the team that haven’t been vaccinated and it’s a personal decision.  (I’m) not going to judge those guys. (Note: #2.  Soooooo #2).

This week, sadly, Rodgers tested positive for COVID-19 and had to come clean and admit he was unvaccinated. 

And then he had to do some cleanup.  Actually, A LOT of cleanup.

In the entertainment business, this is usually the time a studio head gets gently ousted into an independent producing deal or a director or star leaves a project due to artistic differences.

Though if you’re super “A” list, like Rodgers currently is, they might just weather the storm by hiring some expensive damage control experts.  Another way is for you to apologize, tell the absolute unvarnished truth, take the consequences and then try to use your platform to do some future good by learning from your mistake (Note: Attempting to make the world a slightly better place in some small, benevolent, role model-y kind of way).

Rodgers so far seems to be taking a third road that judges across the world warn against – serving as your own defense attorney and refusing to admit to the screw up that got you into all this trouble in the first place.

The Packers’ current star QB seems convinced his primary transgression right now is merely choosing to follow his own protocol of protection against COVID-19.  He simply doesn’t get that it’s the lie that almost always brings you down.

Except when you get away with it.  Which, in this case, he hasn’t.

See, it’s Rodgers’ belief that because he played this season by following all of the protocols for unvaccinated players that he is the VICTIM here.  So instead, he proclaims:

..I’m in the crosshairs of the woke angry mob right now… So, before my final nail gets put in my cancel culture casket, I think I would like to set the record straight on so many of the blatant lies that are out there about myself.

Then, in classic client as his own ill-advised attorney style, he goes on to mansplain his vaccine lie.  How the media was on a witch hunt (Note: Yes, he went THAT Trumpian) for unvaccinated players in August and that accounted for his use of the word “immunized.” 

How they’ve (his fellow players) all endured Draconian measures…not based on science, such as undergoing daily COVID-19 testing that must be negative before entering the Packers’ facilities; wearing a mask inside and around vaccinated people; physically distancing; not leaving his hotel and other travel restrictions.

In other words, behaving like a working human who cares about others and the future of humanity in the midst of a global pandemic.

As if that wasn’t enough, Rodgers went on to whine that he was tested over 300 times and was negative every time before finally testing positive this past week.

Well, um, yeah, that is the way it works. 

As we three gay guys of a certain age would have gladly told him.

We had lots and lots of friends who were healthy and HIV negative before, one day, they contracted HIV and tested positive.  Then, they got sick with full-blown AIDS.  And in the eighties and nineties, like too many with full-blown COVID-19 in 2020 and, still, into 2021, sadly died.

That’s how viruses roll.  You become positive AFTER you were negative for months…or even…years.

To further buoy his explanation, Rodgers brought 500 pages of research he compiled to appeal his non-vaccination status to the NFL.  It’s a cornucopia of information of #1s, #2s and #3s that you can read about here.

But basically he presents it to support his claim that he needs an alternative to a shot because he’s allergic to an ingredient in the MRNA vaccines (Pfizer and Moderna).  This despite the view from the head of the American College of Allergy Asthma and Immunology’s COVID Vaccine Task Force that “you’re as likely to get struck by lightning as you are to have an allergic reaction to a COVID vaccine.”

(Note: Not to mention anecdotal evidence from our own internal study — The Chair has allergies to countless pathogens, gets regular allergy shots, has asthma and is OLD(er).  Yet he has been thrice vaccinated thus far with nary a serious reaction).

Oh, one more thing.  Rodgers says he also hesitates to get the J & J shot because he’s heard of multiple people who have had adverse events, including leaving themselves open to sterility, which is something he greatly fears because the next great chapter of my life, I believe, is being a father. (Note: There is zero link between these vaccines and sterility.  00000.00000%).

It is not for us to say that it might be a good idea for Aaron Rodgers to delay fatherhood a bit.  But as a blogger and non-football fan, I am free to write it on behalf of the families of the 750,000 dead Americans and all those AT RISK that he might have infected had his team not required him to take the COVID protocols he so vehemently and so publicly continues to resent.

Green Day – “American Idiot”