Mark Madden's Hot Take: There's a difference between actions of Aaron Rodgers, Antonio Brown

Antonio Brown got suspended three games by the NFL for having a bogus covid vaccination card. Brown’s ex-personal chef ratted him out because Brown owes the chef $10k. Brown’s ban costs him somewhere around $183k in game checks.

Remember when those game checks were a lot bigger?

Brown has not been hard done by. The NFL doesn’t require players to be vaccinated. But those who don’t get pricked must operate under a stiffer protocol. Brown dodged that stiffer protocol.

But Aaron Rodgers deceived the world into thinking he’d been vaccinated via semantics, saying he’d been “immunized.” He violated NFL protocol for those not vaccinated when he attended news conferences sans mask.

Rodgers was fined $14,650 for attending a gathering of more than three people. (A Halloween party, to be exact.) Unvaccinated players can’t do that. Green Bay was fined $300k for violating NFL covid protocols.

There is a difference between what Rodgers and Brown did: Rodgers deceived the public. Brown bamboozled his team and the league. Brown also committed a crime.

But this feels preferential even if, technically, it isn’t.

This is a rare occasion where Brown seems the least nutty of those involved.

Brown did what he often does: Owe somebody money. But that somebody had dirt on Brown that went beyond small-claims court.

Rodgers deceived. He absurdly related his decision-making process to Martin Luther King. He cited the “woke mob.” He went to Joe Rogan for medical advice. He underwent an alternate, homeopathic “immunization” that apparently doesn’t work, because he got covid. He spread misinformation about the vaccine. He defended all this by being self-righteous and condescending to an amazing degree. Rodgers conducted a full-blown excrement show.

Brown wins this round. (That won’t make up for those lost game checks.)