Buffalo Bills general manager Brandon Beane was quietly admonished by the NFL for comments he made about releasing unvaccinated players.
In a recent appearance on “One Bills Live,” Beane was asked about a hypothetical situation in which the team might be just shy of reaching a threshold where enough players have received the COVID-19 vaccine that in-person meetings can resume. Beane said he would be willing to release an unvaccinated player to reach that threshold in order to gain that advantage.
“Yeah. I would. Because it’d be an advantage,” Beane said, via Dan Graziano of ESPN. “We’re laughing, but these meetings [last season] were not as productive as before. You guys saw it in the field house — sometimes we’d have three to four meetings going on, and sometimes you’re talking over each other. But it was the only way to pull it off and be socially distanced. So it would be an advantage to cut a player and fall under that umbrella.”
Not surprisingly, the league was not happy with Beane’s remarks. According to Graziano, Beane was contacted by the league office and told that a player could not be released solely based on his vaccination status.
It’s no surprise that the NFL would want to quiet any talk such as this as much as possible. The league has focused on incentivizing getting the vaccine instead of mandating it. Many NBA players have voiced mixed feelings about taking it, and the same is likely true in the NFL.
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