The Other McCain

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Gosh, How Can I Get Readers to Pay Attention to the NFL’s COVID-19 Policy?

Posted on | December 24, 2021 | Comments Off on Gosh, How Can I Get Readers to Pay Attention to the NFL’s COVID-19 Policy?

Rachel Bush is an outspoken critic of the NFL’s COVID-19 policy. Perhaps you’ve never heard of her, and I had no idea who she was until this morning, when I started researching the upcoming game this Sunday between the New England Patriots and Buffalo Bills. In their earlier meeting — the Dec. 6 “wind tunnel” Monday Night Football game at Buffalo’s Highmark Stadium — the Patriots only threw three passes in a 14-10 victory over the Bills. The outcome of Sunday’s rematch will almost certainly decide the AFC East title, so I’ve been reading all the pregame coverage, including the news that Buffalo wide receiver Cole Beasley has tested positive for COVID-19 and will miss the game Sunday.

This led to some controversy, because Beasley is an outspoken anti-vaxxer and, because he’s unvaccinated, NFL rules require him to be regularly tested for the virus. So he got back a positive test, even though he was having only mild symptoms. Meanwhile, one of Beasley’s teammates, Bills offensive guard Jon Feliciano, had to go to the emergency room with a COVID-19 case, even though Feliciano is vaccinated. This prompted Beasley to write on Instagram: “Just to be clear Covid is not keeping me out of this game. The rules are. Vaxxed players are playing with Covid every week now because they don’t test.”

Which brings us back to outspoken critic Rachel Bush.

Do I have your attention now?

You see, Rachel Bush is the wife of Buffalo Bills safety Jordan Poyer, and she started sounding off about the NFL’s COVID-19 rules last summer.

Why isn’t Tucker Carlson booking Rachel Bush as a guest? This is the spokeswoman we need at this crucial moment in our nation’s history, and if you follow her Twitter account, you’ll find that she’s still speaking out for freedom, especially since Cole Beasley (“Bease”) got banned from Sunday’s game with the Patriots.

If the folks who run CPAC knew what they were doing, Rachel Bush would be invited as a main stage speaker next year. But meanwhile, there’s a game Sunday, and both teams will be missing some players due to COVID-19 — it looks like New England wide receiver Kendrick Bourne may be out due to the Wuhan virus — in a crucial AFC East battle. So we really need to pay attention to outspoken critic Rachel Bush.

Some of my readers may complain that it’s unfair to use a bikini model to call attention to this problem, but it has long been my belief that there is no such thing as an “unfair advantage” in life. Each of us is born with certain traits and tendencies, certain strengths and weaknesses, and in the grand competition of life, it is up to each of us to make the most of our own individual opportunities. That’s what freedom is really all about, and a philosophy that can be applied to any challenge, whether it’s winning football games or trying to get clicks on the Internet.

Rachel Bush is not only a bikini model, but also a wife and mother, and her husband Jordan Poyer is a pretty inspirational guy in his own right. His mom was 21 when she found herself pregnant by a guy she’d already broken up with. Her ex-boyfriend, Jordan’s biological father, is a career violent criminal who has been repeatedly been imprisoned over the past 20 years. His mom said: “Jordan saved my life. When I found out I was pregnant, that was it, I had to get my act together.”

After playing volleyball for two years at Chemeketa Community College in Salem, Julie left for Eastern New Mexico University with Jordan in tow.
But with that came road trips, and without family around she didn’t know what to do. Her coach suggested letting Fa’alaeo Poyer, a former tight end at the school and brother of the assistant volleyball coach, watch him. Julie scoffed. She wouldn’t be handing her baby over to some stranger.
But when Fa’alaeo walked into the gym that month, Jordan toddled right over to him, their connection instant and obvious.
“Fa’alaeo fell in love with Jordan way before he fell in love with me,” says Julie.

Think about that for a minute. If his mother had listened to the advocates of “choice,” Jordan Poyer wouldn’t be here. His life is a testimony to the fact that, even for children born under the most difficult circumstances — a single mom, dad going to jail, etc. — where there is life, there is hope. And it’s not as if Jordan Poyer’s life has been all sunshine and roses.

Coming from the small town of Astoria, Oregon, he became a standout at Oregon State, but that only good enough to make him a seventh-round pick in the 2013 NFL draft, and the Philadelphia Eagles waived him six games into his rookie season. He got picked up by the Cleveland Browns and became a starter during four seasons before becoming a free agent and signing a $13 million contract with Buffalo in 2016. Despite all this success, Poyer still had problems which he recently explained in a poignant message to his teammates:

This is not easy for me to do.
But I need to do it.
I need to do it for my daughter. For my wife. For my whole family. For my teammates. And most of all for myself.
I’m Jordan Poyer, captain of the Buffalo Bills, and I am an alcoholic. . . .
When I saw some of my Bills teammates for the first time over the summer, they had no idea that I was four months sober.
I’ll never forget, we were chilling, just catching up and everything, and some of the guys were drinking, and I just came right out and told them the deal. I said, “Look, I know y’all have seen me drunk as hell before. But I want you to know that I have a problem. And I’m taking the steps to address it. I’m not drinking anymore. So I hope everybody’s cool with that. I’m trying to be a better me.”

Your life has a meaning and purpose. You may never know what purpose your life serves in the grand scheme of things, but it is nevertheless important to live intentionally, in the belief that what you do in life makes a difference somehow. I can’t say what the purpose of Jordan Poyer’s life is — although keeping a certain bikini model from being lonely is certainly a worthwhile life purpose — but the point is that life, like football, is a team sport. Our individual actions have ripple effects that we may not even be aware of, so that the choices we make in life can influence people we’ve never met. Something that may seem so trivial to us that we don’t even think about it can make a world of difference for someone else. Your good deeds to others may go unnoticed, and you may feel that your efforts are unappreciated, but you have to give what coaches call that “110% effort” on every play. Speaking of which . . .

Glenn Reynolds informs us that Mike of the Cold Fury blog has experienced a serious medical problem, and there’s a GoFundMe to help Mike get back on his feet — well, back on his foot, anyway, since he’s only got one now, after they amputated his left leg. I hit his PayPal tip jar, because there are two kinds of people in the world:

1. Good people;
and
2. Worthless sons of bitches that never hit the tip jar.

Go give the guy some help and Mike, if you’re reading this, be sure to check and see if a certain bikini model hit your tip jar. Just sayin’ . . .

Life has a meaning and purpose, as I was saying, and despite my long philosophical digression from the main topic of outspoken NFL policy critic Rachel Bush, I have not forgotten that there is a crucial football game on Sunday. When the Bills travel to Foxboro to play the Patriots, the outcome will determine the meaning and purpose of the life of Michael McCorkle “Mac” Jones. Ever since he got drafted by New England, it has become my belief that Mac Jones has a destiny to be the first rookie quarterback in NFL history to take his team to the Super Bowl, and that means the Patriots must defeat the Bills on Sunday.

Which means that, unfortunately for Rachel Bush and her husband, Buffalo is destined to lose Sunday. If you take the philosophical view of such things, you must realize that having the Bills lose one of their top receivers for this crucial game because of the NFL’s COVID-19 rules was a matter of fate, something that the Greek chorus might have warned Buffalo fans about, if football games were an ancient tragedy.

But while I know that Mac Jones is going to break the hearts of Buffalo fans on Sunday — it is his destiny, I tell you — you shouldn’t feel sorry for Jordan Poyer, because he still gets to go home to Rachel Bush when the game’s over. And that’s a special level of winning.

Now, please everybody go hit Mike’s tip jar, even if you’re a Buffalo fan.

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers!




 

Category: Cold Fury, Football, Rule 5

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