NEW YORK’S BUFFALO
— Buffalo Bills wide receiver Cole Beasley, who has been vocal in his opposition to the NFL’s COVID-19 vaccination policy, attempted to clarify his position on Wednesday, claiming his issue with the league is the disparity in standards between vaccinated and unvaccinated players.
“I’m neither anti-vax or for-vax — I’m pro choice,” Beasley said after the Bills’ first practice of training camp, reading from a prepared statement.
“With that said, the issue at hand is withholding information from players in order to sway a player in a route he may not be comfortable with.”
“When it comes to a player’s health and safety, information that is critical in the decision-making process should be completely transparent.”
A player may feel misled and unsure about a particularly personal decision if they do not have all of the necessary facts.
The NFL’s policy, which severely restricted unvaccinated athletes while allowing vaccinated players to return to near-normalcy, drew criticism from Beasley last month, when he tweeted that he was not vaccinated and would “live my one life what I wa.”
Nevertheless, it was the frequency of testing that Beasley was most critical of; under the regulation controlling preseason and training camp, unvaccinated players will be needed to be tested daily, while vaccinated players will only be obliged to test every two weeks.
“It’s obvious reasoning that if a vaxed or unvaxed player is tested less frequently, the chances of being removed for COVID reduce drastically,” he explained.
“In terms of player safety, I’ll just say that we all want to be safe.”
“For a lot of NFL players, safety doesn’t only mean avoiding the COVID virus.”
“Our health is now and in the future, which we are trying to safeguard with our personal choice while doing everything we did in our protocol during a very successful 2020 NFL season,” said Bills general manager Brandon Beane on Wednesday.
Beane also stated that he does not feel that Beasley’s or any other player’s social media comments about the vaccine will detract from the team’s overall focus now that training camp has started.
“Sometimes things goes out in social media,” Beane added, “and you don’t know how to interpret it.”
“You know, I’ve had quite a few discussions with a few of the men.”
It’s a challenge.
Men are attempting to educate themselves and consider all perspectives.
Yet, we have professionals on staff, and we allow them to share their opinions.
“As long as it’s not going to be a distraction, and Sean (McDermott) and I have both made that point.”
We don’t think anything is wrong.
I believe you’ll be able to tell where our boys are focused once we’re out on the turf playing football.
Last season, Beasley set a career high with 967 receiving yards on 82 catches in his second season with the Bills.
