It escaped vast attention last week when Aaron Rodgers suggested during his appearance on "The Pat McAfee Show" that NFL people got past league COVID-19 protocols by obtaining "fake" vaccination cards. And now, former quarterback Cam Newton is joining that chorus.
Newton, appearing on his "4th & 1" podcast on Monday, addressed the 2021 NFL protocols that required all team employees – players, coaches, staff, everyone – to get Covid-19 shots so as to avoid stringent frequent testing in order to enter team facilities.
All coaches were forced to take the shots or not work. Players who did not have their shots indeed had to submit to daily testing and had to wear a mask within the team facility and practice distancing guidelines during meals, meetings and workouts.
"If we're being honest," Newton said on his podcast, "Going back to 2020, there were multiple players, coaches, and executives that fraudulently got their COVID shot. Yes, I said it."
That allegation supports what Rodgers said last week in the middle of what was mostly a viral criticism of Anthony Fauci's testimony in front of the United States Senate.
Fauci, one of the leading members of the White House Coronavirus Task Force in 2020 under President Donald Trump, was a strong proponent of the vaccines when they were rolled out during President Joe Biden's administration. He testified before the Senate and invoked the Fifth Amendment so as to not incriminate himself under questioning from Senators.
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Rodgers took Fauci to task for pleading the Fifth a total of 111 times but added this:
"A lot of people had probably fake vax cards back in the day," he said during the latter portion of his McAfee interview. "I remember seeing some of the vax cards. It was like written in crayon.
"I'm like, alright, so we're going to pass that off [as legitimate], but we [unvaccinated] are going to be second-rate citizens over here. I got to wear a yellow armband, train in the back, can't be around more than three people."
Rodgers called it a "crazy time" and it indeed was because wearing masks into restaurants but taking them off during the meal wasn't science derived from the virus being unable to affect people sitting down as opposed to standing up.
It was all performative.
"What a crock of (expletive)," Rodgers said, describing the madness.
Newton apparently agrees because he says people simply got around the NFL's protocols by buying their freedom.
"You're like, Cam, what do you know? It's like, man, I knew multiple people in that locker room didn't get the Covid shot," Newton said. "But they got a card that they paid for.
"Boy, nurses was making big bank. But that card and that little [stamp] .... Man, folks was trying to get in that club. 'Hey, man, you got your vaccination card? Yeah, yeah, I got it...' "
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It should be noted that while Newton recalled Cardgate as starting in 2020, it actually began in 2021. And he had his issues with the vaccine during that time.
He was unvaccinated and when he traveled away from the New England Patriots for a medical appointment, he had trouble with the protocols.
The Patriots, for which Newton was the presumptive starting quarterback, said in a statement that Newton went to the appointment and was away for three days, testing negative each day for COVID-19.
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But due to a "misunderstanding about tests conducted away from NFL facilities" Newton became subjected to a five-day, re-entry cadence before he could return to the team facility.
Newton, who had become an inconsistent passer, lost practice time, then lost his starting job to rookie Mac Jones, and eventually lost his job on the team when he was released.
He later said he felt "bamboozled" by the entire issue.
But if Rodgers and Newton are right about fake vaccination cards being a thing around the NFL at the time, there was apparently much bamboozling being done by a number of people.
