After the NFL fined the Green Bay Packers as well as Aaron Rodgers and Allen Lazard for violations of the league’s Covid protocols, other teams are now probably mad at the league. The reason: the fine for Rodgers was far too low.

Munich/Green Bay – Aaron Rodgers is making plenty of headlines in the 2021 season – unfortunately, from the perspective of his fans, very few of them are of a sporting nature.

After the Rodgers drama in the offseason, when he didn’t show up for workouts and camps and even threatened to resign, there has been new buzz about him lately. At a pre-season press conference, he had answered in the affirmative to the question “Are you immunised?”, giving the public the impression that Rodgers had been vaccinated.

That now turned out to be a false assumption, because the NFL intervened with Rodgers after his Corona infection as with the unvaccinated. Apparently, he had merely undergone homeopathic treatment.

In addition, Rodgers did not publicly observe any of the rules for unvaccinated players, i.e. protective masks on the sidelines or at presence press conferences.

Fine for Rodgers and Packers: rest of league likely unhappy

For that misconduct, the quarterback has now been fined. The 37-year-old and his wide receiver Allen Lazard must now pay exactly $14,650. The Packers franchise, which knew about his vaccination status as well as the breaking of the rules, must pay $300,000 to the NFL.

According to a report by Pro Football Talk, officials from other teams are furious at the leniency of the punishment for those involved. Rodgers, in fact, was fined only once for all his infractions, even though he did not wear protective masks or abide by any other rules on a weekly basis.

“That’s bullshit,” one team official is reported to have said, according to journalist Mike Florio. The league, on the other hand, argues that it is up to the team in question to make sure Covid protocols are followed.

Willful NFL penalties?

For comparison, because the Las Vegas Raiders and their ex-coach Jon Gruden didn’t follow Corona rules in 2020, they were stripped of their sixth-round pick in this year’s draft. The New Orleans Saints were threatened with the same thing.

Penalties for players also seem arbitrarily chosen. Dallas Cowboys wide receiver CeeDee Lamb, for example, was fined nearly $47,000 a few weeks ago for not properly stuffing his jersey into his pants. That’s more than three times what Rodgers and Lazard have to pay for their Corona protocol violations.

In 2016, Tom Brady was suspended for four games for alleged involvement in “Deflate Gate”, which has not been conclusively resolved to this day. Ezekiel Elliott was suspended for six games in 2017 for alleged domestic violence. In civil court, Elliott was previously acquitted.

NFL leaves more punishment for Rodgers to Packers

The league continued to leave the Green Bay Packers free to punish Aaron Rodgers and Allen Lazard internally on top of the NFL’s sanctions. That that will happen, however, is considered out of the question. The relationship between the franchise and its quarterback is strained anyway.

Whether the quarterback will be able to play in Sunday’s Week 10 clash with the Seattle Seahawks is still up in the air. The earliest Rodgers will be allowed to rejoin the team is the day before.