Tuesday, January 4, 2022

Bigger Pie Forum: NFL Moving Covid-19 Testing Goal Posts

 Too many National Football League players are testing positive for COVID-19 and messing up the  betting odds.  And lineups for fantasy football leagues – including our Family Feud League.  So, the NFL is moving test goal posts to reduce the number of flagged players who have to sit out games.  Bad for business to mess with bookies.  And TV schedules and audiences.

The NFL is big time show biz.  It’s also big time woke.  It’s OK to tweak vaccine hoops and testing protocols so the players can jump through them.  And so a woke journalist can write about how the “NFL Navigated a COVID Minefield” (Wall Street Journal December 21).  And so, the show can go on.

It’s weird because over 95% of the players have been vaccinated and are subject to strict mask requirements, locker room distancing, and other protocols – enforced with fines.  Most players who test positive are not symptomatic (no cough, fever, or malaise).  Just your ordinary off the Bell Curve chart NFL specimens with freakish athletic abilities, conditioning and tolerance for injury and pain.  But many are testing positive with the latest COVID variant.  Are the vaccinated causing and spreading the variants as vaccine skeptics said they would?

How ironic is that?  NFL 2021 protocols were designed with carrots and sticks to incentivize players to get vaccinated according to the Wall Street Journal.  It was easy to shame and shun the few unvaccinated players who resisted the carrots and sticks (unless they were superstar quarterbacks).  And blame the unvaccinated for outbreaks and breakthroughs.  Now it appears that vaccinated players are the problem.  Who you gonna blame now?  The vaccine mandators?

NFL teams and their carefully scripted and managed regimes are real time lab experiments.  Highly visible experiments.  They don’t seem to be playing out according to script though.  Bad news for vaccine mandators is leaking from the NFL labs.  Like the virus leaked from the Bat Lady’s lab.

The virus is mutating to more contagious but less virulent variants (fewer than 20 reported deaths worldwide from the Omicron variant).  Knowledgeable epidemiologists said this would happen in response to mass vaccinations.  The virus is evolving in response to the vaccines.  It’s just doing its thing.  But it’s going off script.  So what to do?  If you’re the NFL, just rewrite the script.  Make adjustments.  Call an audible.

Here’s how the rewrite works.  The star tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs tested positive on Monday after scoring two touchdowns (and putting up 36 fantasy points) to help win a close game Sunday against the Chargers.  Before the rewrite, he would be COVID inactive for 10 days and miss the next game.  But now if he tests negative twice in the meantime, he can return to practice and play against the Steelers next Sunday.  The betting line on that game may change as his game status changes.

By the way, the tight end was asymptomatic when tested.  So are about two thirds of the other players testing positive.  The rest have very mild symptoms.  So the rewrite eliminated weekly testing of asymptomatic vaccinated players.  Fewer tests = fewer cases.  Fewer cases = fewer games postponed.  The NFL postponed three games last weekend before the rewrite because a record number of players tested positive.  Those games involved teams that are playoff contenders.  Outcomes may have changed due to missing players.

But no games were cancelled.  That would have meant no game paychecks.  And problems for the players and problems for the NFL with the players union.  The WSJ said the NFL Commissioner sent a memo to teams last July that said that only medical concerns would lead to rescheduling games.  Not competitive considerations.  Funny that all rescheduled games involved teams competing for the playoffs and the big payoffs.

Funny there were no cancellations or forfeitures for medical reasons either.  The memo said games cancelled due to an outbreak caused by an unvaccinated player would be forfeited by that player’s team.  The Eagles complained about this when their game with Washington was postponed (but not forfeited) because they believed it was caused by an unvaccinated Washington player.

Lessons for the country from the NFL’s script rewrite are obvious.  They have been obvious for a long time.  More tests = more cases.  But not more infections.  And more cases = more work days missed.  You may not sympathize when a millionaire football player misses a game day payment.  But it’s hard to ignore the plight of those living payday to payday who miss paydays.

Another lesson is the NFL has better management than the country.  It adjusts to change.  Our politicians and bureaucrats just double down on dumb.  And do more of what they have already done that doesn’t work.  And ignore the harmful unintended consequences of their actions.  Worse yet, they hide those harmful consequences and defame and censor those who try to warn about them and mitigate their damage.

I have been following the running debate in this forum between the lawyer (an establishment acolyte) and the doctor (an establishment heretic).  The lawyer advocates more vaccinations to save lives.  He offers familiar arguments and cites to establishment authorities to support his case.  The doctor says the vaccinations aren’t really vaccinations, have limited efficacy, and have pervasive perverse short and long term effects (including many unreported deaths).  He recently published a long peer reviewed article (“COVID-19 Pandemic: What is the Truth?”) about these effects in the journal Surgical Neurology International.  It’s well written but not an easy read – unless you are a brain surgeon.  Maybe not even then.

I know both the lawyer and the doctor.  Both are serious and well-intentioned.  Yet both can’t be right about vaccines.

Wouldn’t it be ironic if the NFL’s audible changes perceptions about vaccines?  And about government responses to COVID-19.  And causes time to run out on the pandemic – now in the third overtime.

Bigger Pie Forum authored and sponsored this post.

16 comments:

Anonymous said...

Running and common theme since January 2020. "Moving goalposts" or flat out lies just fits better. A shame soooo many of you fell for the fear campaign and were punked for profit and maybe even harmed inside your precious temple. I pray this is not the case.

Anonymous said...

Comparing the NFL that is 95+% vaccinated and the US that is 62% vaccinated and what policies should be is disingenuous at best.

NY State has some great data on breakthrough infections. But please carry on with the ridiculous notion that numbers we're seeing are a result of the vaccinated.

https://coronavirus.health.ny.gov/covid-19-breakthrough-data

Anonymous said...

They haven’t gotten traction anywhere else with their diatribes, so Bigger Pie goes after the NFL. Gotcha.

Anonymous said...

Why is Bigger Pie getting involved in a private business and its decisions? I thought they were trying to fix the government.

Sounds like they are just riding the anti-NFL, pro-trump, covid conspiracist wave.

Anonymous said...

Russell Blaylock, the assistant editor-in-chief of Surgical Neurology International, submitted an article to his own journal which was peer-reviewed in 23 days by his own editorial board and this is supposed to constitute scientific truth about the Covid-19 pandemic? Color me skeptical. And no, I am not going to bother reading the article.

Anonymous said...

I know it sucks for many of you here to hear this but the science is now in and it is very clear that the vaccines haven't worked to do anything but possibly save a few folks that were in bad health to begin with. I know , I know....Big Tony says....Uncle Joey says , but the actual proof is standing on either side of you with Omicron. The next corona to induce a cold. The focus should shift to the grifters who started this years of hell for us. Join me.

Anonymous said...

@3:37 - So why are so many more unvaccinated people ending up in the hospital and on their death beds? How does your version of science explain that?

Anonymous said...

They haven’t gotten traction anywhere else with their diatribes, so Bigger Pie goes after the NFL.

Actually it appears that they have gotten some traction with you.

Anonymous said...

6:10:

His version isn't science. I'm sure it's basically whatever Joe Rogan, Aaron Rodgers, and Tucker Carlson are saying this week.

Anonymous said...

Fauci's vax only strategy appears to be about as successful as the plans to rebirth Farish St and turn downtown Lumumbaville into a creative class mecca.

Marcus Welby said...

@6:10 This was posted yesterday:If science can’t be questioned, it’s not science anymore; it’s propaganda and that’s the truth,” Two posters posted in support of this - one thanked the poster, the other made some comment about a lack of common sense in the population. For some reason, KF deleted these posts after they were approved. The last time I checked, "science" was allowed to be questioned, thereby allowing knowledge to grow. Apparently you agree with KF that propaganda trumps science. There are many questions being asked by many intelligent people, and no one bothers to answer them. I am more concerned about that - the "people who know" can't, or will not, even provide an answer to your question other than to say that if the people you refer to had been "vaccinated" they may not be in the hospital. How is that for "science"?

Kingfish said...

Nope. Didn't touch them. The author may have removed them but wasn't me. Why would I? Nothing wrong with them. Now the comments wishing certain groups got the virus or died are not approved. That includes the plague rats comments.

Anonymous said...

Marcus Welby, those comments were, and still are, on another JJ thread. I'm not going to tell you which one since you want to play piss ant tonight.

Anonymous said...

What has this for to do with Colin Kapernick and Roger Goodell kneeling at the alter of BLM? Why are the big pie guys not fixing our state government?

Anonymous said...

Well I was at the Cowboys/Cardinals game and did not see any players kneel. But the flag covered the entire field and was carried by probably 200-300 first responders.

Anonymous said...

6:10 : Because they are likely FAT and eat up with underlying conditions ! Damn man, does this fact have to be pointed out every post ? The vaxxed breakthru cases are no different AND there are just as many ! Why ? Because the vaccines are tamiflu ! Wake the heck up !


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In the spirit of helping those who are less fortunate, Trollfest '09 adopts a cause for which a portion of the proceeds and donations will be donated: Keeping Frank Melton in his home. The “Keep Frank Melton From Being Homeless” booth will sell chances for five dollars to pin the tail on the jackass. John Reeves has graciously volunteered to be the jackass for this honorable excursion into saving Frank's ass. What's an ass between two friends after all? If Mr. Reeves is unable to um, perform, Speaker Billy McCoy has also volunteered as when the word “jackass” was mentioned he immediately ran as fast as he could to sign up.


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If you get tired come relax at the Fox News Tent. To gain admittance to the VIP section, bring either your Republican Party ID card or a Rebel Flag. Bringing both will entitle you to free drinks.Get your tickets now. Since this is an event for trolls, no ID is required, just bring the hate. Bring the family, Trollfest '07 is for EVERYONE!!!

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