Michael Irvin won three Super Bowl rings in his Hall of Fame career with the Cowboys, and he says what really separates the great teams from the rest is a willingness to do whatever it takes to win. And this year, that means getting vaccinated.
Teams with at least 85 percent of their players vaccinated are going to be at a competitive advantage this season because they’ll have fewer restrictions on team meetings and practices, and Irvin blasted the Cowboys for being among the teams that aren’t meeting that threshold.
“Dude, you’re not thinking right. You’re not thinking right. Whatever you got, I don’t give a damn,” Irvin said, via Todd Archer of ESPN. “Nothing else can be more important. You’re not going to get this [winning a Super Bowl] easily. Nothing else could be more important. ... Jimmy [Johnson] made that abundantly clear [during Irvin’s playing career]. Nothing else is more important. And not being one of the [85 percent vaccinated teams] says there’s other things to a great number of people on this team that are more important than winning championships, and that makes me worried.”
Irvin said that if he was playing he’d make it his business to see to it that his teammates are getting vaccinated, and he called on the Cowboys’ team leaders to take a stand.
“If you’re not one of them teams [at the threshold], are you really thinking about winning a championship? You see what I’m saying,” he said. “OK, so now if you’re not getting vaccinated and you got all these other teams that are getting vaccinated . . . Somebody in that damn locker room [should say], ‘Hey man, we’re going to have a chance, are you vaccinated?’” Irvin said. “Let’s go through this because this could be a two-week healthy dude missing games, and in this league, this ain’t the NBA. In this league that could be it for you. The right person misses two weeks, that’s it. Your ass is out.”
Irvin is right: Players who are choosing not to get vaccinated are choosing not to do everything they can to help their team win.