Bears' Jimmy Graham Says He Felt Forced To Get COVID-19 Vaccine

CHICAGO — Chicago Bears tight end Jimmy Graham figures he has been in the NFL long enough to speak his mind, including on the rights of players when it comes to coronavirus testing and vaccinations.

Graham wrote in a tweet on Thursday that he essentially feels as if he was forced to get vaccinated after the National Football League Players Association recommended this week that players and coaches who are vaccinated should be tested every day as they enter the team facilities.

Sixty-five players and staff members across the NFL have tested positive for COVID-19 since training camp began, the NFLPA said in a memo. The Bears currently have four players on the reserve COVID-19 list including nose tackle Eddie Goldman, long-snapper Patrick Scales, linebacker Christian Jones and offensive tackle Elijah Wilkinson.

After tweeting that he felt trapped into getting the vaccine, Graham followed with another tweet that read, "I've done everything I've been asked and now I feel like I'm being punished. If I miss a test that you are proposing every day I'll be fined a max 150K! How does this make sense. How's the punishment 100X worse than last year and I'm vaccinated now?"

Asked about his comments on Thursday in Lake Forest, Graham did not back down.

"I've been in the league going on 12 years now, and it's been kind of frustrating at times with them [the NFLPA]," Graham said. "I'm not going to hold back. I'm a grown man. And I wish somebody would talk to me and speak to me like a grown man and let me have a little bit of say in some things."

He added: "For me, it's one of these things where, last year, I understand last year and what was happening last year. We all made a commitment to try to make this season happen, like that season happened, to try to make a run and win the Super Bowl. I understood what that was about. You know there wasn't a vaccine available. There was a lot less known about it, so we had to take those measures to do that."

"I thought we also had a game plan going into this season, and now we're kind of redacting and retracting on that. So it's a bit frustrating for myself, who went out and got the vaccine just so I could, you know, do the same thing and have another successful healthy season. That's all I'm going to say about that."

Bears general manager Ryan Pace said last week that 85 percent of Bears players have been vaccinated. Pace said he hopes that percentage continues to rise at a time when nearly 80 percent of NFL players have received at least one shot.

Bears coach Matt Nagy told reporters Thursday that he has not yet spoken to Graham about his feelings but said vaccination is a subject that everyone feels differently about. Nagy said he would never criticize anyone for their opinion and beliefs and said it’s not a subject that is going away anytime soon.

“There is stuff going on every day with this, and I think everybody is figuring out the best thing to do to be safe,” Nagy told reporters in Lake Forest. “And not just in the sports world but in life in general; every state is a little different in what they are doing. Masks, no masks, things are certainly changing."