New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers is continuing his anti-vax crusade. And Kansas City Chiefs tight-end Travis Kelce, now known to the public as Taylor Swift’s new boy toy, is his latest target.
While appearing on Tuesday’s edition of The Pat McAfee Show, Rodgers took a jab at Kelce, whose team defeated the Jets on Sunday night. Rodgers didn’t participate due to an injury that cut his season short. But that didn’t stop him from engaging in some trash-talking on the ESPN program about one of Kelce’s partnerships. (No, not Swift.)
When talking to McAfee about the Jets’ recent loss, Rodgers said, “[It was a] moral victory out there… that we hung with the champs and that our defense played well, and Pat [Mahomes] didn’t have a crazy game. And Mr. Pfizer—we kind of shut him down. He didn’t have his crazy impact game.”
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Last week, Kelce (and his mother) launched a new campaign with Pfizer, encouraging the public to get their flu shots and the latest COVID-19 booster. Complicating things even further is the fact that Rodgers’ new boss, Jets owner Woody Johnson, is the heir to Johnson & Johnson, another major vaccine producer.
Infamously, Rodgers has spent the past two years of the pandemic spewing anti-vax views and spreading misinformation on several platforms. The quarterback initially refused to get vaccinated for COVID, claiming that he was allergic to one of the vaccine’s ingredients. Instead, he confusingly stated that he was “immunized.” When Rodgers eventually got the virus, he told McAfee that he was taking Ivermectin—which has not been proven to combat COVID—under the instruction of Joe Rogan.
During the same appearance in 2021, he told the hosts that he was being attacked by the “woke mob” and even invoked the words of Martin Luther King Jr.
“You have a moral obligation to object to unjust rules and rules that make no sense,” Rogers said, misquoting MLK, who wrote in a 1963 letter from the Birmingham, Alabama jail, “One has not only a legal, but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.” (Notably, the NFL did not mandate COVID vaccinations for players.)
Rodgers’ feelings towards Kelce’s Pfizer sponsorship don’t necessarily come as a surprise. But the Super Bowl champion may not want to throw jabs at Taylor Swift’s new leading man. In just the span of a few weeks, the handsome athlete has become the most famous and admired athlete—and maybe man—in America, with football and music fans anointing them our next celebrity power couple. Swift’s appearances at Kelce’s games have even become a televised event of their own.
Yes, anti-vaxxers are dangerous and terrifying. But Swifties (and their supreme leader) should not be messed with.
