Bills' Cole Beasley Missing Point Again on Booing Issue
So Buffalo Bills wide receiver Cole Beasley has broken his Twitter silence yet again.
This latest time, it was to criticize a small minority of fans who booed him at Highmark Stadium during Buffalo's 40-0 romp over the Houston Texans on Sunday.
All of it has to do with the COVID-19 vaccines and Beasley's arguments for avoiding them.
Beasley Tweeted: "Only place I get boo’d is at our home stadium. Then some of the same people want me to take pictures and sign autographs. I thought bills fans were the best in the world? Where’d they go? If the vaccine works then why do vaxxed people need to be protected from unvaxxed? #letemin.
OK, so let's get to the answers, one by one.
As for the first question, that wasn't a question. It was a thought that may well be true. So let's move on.
Where'd they go?
Answer: To Highmark Stadium, as always. According to the official game summary, the paid attendance was 68,087 of mostly working-class people, many of whom need financing options to pay for their season ticket and parking plans just for the right to see Beasley in person and break tables and all that other neat stuff. That's where.
What's more, only a small minority booed. We're guessing the percentage is around the same of people who, like Beasley, choose to be unvaccinated and have been locked out of home games as a result of a clear and sensible policy.
Which brings up a delicious irony:
Somehow, it's OK for Beasley to be vocal about his reluctance to get the vaccine, but not OK for fans who pay good money to get in to be vocal about their disagreements with his thoughts and actions.
Also, it's probably a good bet that the ones booing him were not the same ones seeking autographs and photo bombs. But we don't have firm data to back that theory up.
Here's what we do have: Firm data to answer his final question about why vaxxed people need to be protected from the unvaxxed if the vaccines actually work.
Because the vaccines are more effective when more people people take them.
Large numbers of unvaccinanted people make variants more likely, according to scientists, including Dr. Christopher Martin of West Virginia University.
"Though the coronavirus does appear to be infecting vaccinated people as well in greater numbers than we expected, the unvaccinated are still far more likely to contract and spread the disease," Martin told Bloomberg News.
“Each of us remains at risk so long as there are large numbers of unvaccinated people anywhere in the world,” Martin says.
But Beasley chooses to reject all this, insisting instead that he doesn't get the vaccine because "I don't need it."
So when you add all this up, it makes perfect sense that Beasley doesn't understand the booes coming from such a small percentage of the Bills Mafia.
Because he doesn't understand a lot of other things.
Fortunately for the Bills, that doesn't carry over to his craft. Beasley understands defenses and what opponents try to do.
That will have to be enough for now.
But because of the more restrictive rules in place for unvaccinated players, Beasley is at a greater risk than his vaccinated teammates of missing games even if he never tests positive for the virus.
Then it might not be enough.
Nick Fierro is the publisher of Bills Central. Check out the latest Bills news at www.si.com/nfl/bills and follow Fierro on Twitter at @NickFierro. Email to Nicky300@aol.com.
