Burack: Aaron Rodgers is the MVP, But Vaccine-Demanding 'Journalists' May Refuse to Vote For Him

Pat McAfee joked with Aaron Rodgers in November that Rodgers' vaccination status and nebulous claims of immunization could cost him future MVP awards.

"You know you're probably never gonna win an MVP again?" McAfee said about the award voted on by journalists still in the fetal position over Rodgers' personal health decision. Like all good jokes, McAfee's line was rooted in truth.

The list of NFL MVP voters is basically comprised of the same blue-checks who spent more than seven days painting Rodgers as the football equivalent of the BTK Killer. The voter list,which you can find here, includes Peter King and writers from USA Today, ProFootballTalk, and NBC.

Football media, a group even less independent than tech writers, will not stomach tweeting out that Rodgers, who exposed their mediocrity and inability to ask meaningful follow-up questions this past summer, has won the award.

These NFL MVP voting journalists are an extension of the mainstream press, a group as shallow and unimpressive as they are. So you can expect them to work tirelessly with their resources on social media to re-shape the narrative so that they can avoid voting for Rodgers for MVP. After all, these people have industry Super Bowl parties to attend with their three-letter agents.

Sports media guys are already gearing up with excuses to disqualify Rodgers. After all, Mike Florio convinced them that the country should mercilessly punish anyone who opts not for the COVID vaccine, and they'll do anything but disobey orders from their sports media leaders. So they'll attack Rodgers the man to avoid voting for Rodgers the player.

Rodgers used the word draconian and (gasp) cited MLK. Bring out the guillotine.

Still, despite all the pressure to remove Rodgers from MVP consideration, on Get Up, Mike Greenberg -- one of the few sports pundits who judge players based on the game -- named Aaron Rodgers as the MVP frontrunner after yet another flawless performance in a major conference win over the Rams -- this time, with only nine functioning toes.

Then former head coach Rex Ryan admitted that while he should vote for Rodgers, he ultimately would not:

"Rodgers because he allowed Jordan Love to play," Ryan said.

By sneering that "he allowed Jordan Love to play," Ryan is condemning Rodgers for refusing the COVID vaccine and then testing positive for the virus. And in Ryan's mind, a personal medical decision can disqualify an otherwise winning candidate from the coveted MVP prize.

So the plan, for now, is to weaponize the Jordan Love game against Rodgers in his case for a second consecutive MVP award -- a stance as political as it is inadequate.

Had Rodgers been vaccinated but tested positive, as several of his teammates did, the outcome presumably would have been the same. He still likely would have missed the one game against the Chiefs that Love started.

Sports media has purposely misled its small audience into believing that vaccinated players who test positive for COVID will quickly return, while the unvaccinated bad boys must sit for 10 days. It's a lie. The NFL allows vaccinated players to return after two negative tests in a row, but as NFL insider Jay Glazer discovered, “that normally doesn’t happen within 10 days."

Got that? Ten days, the exact number of days the NFL made Rodgers sit out because of his unvaccinated ways. That's been the case all across sports. On Wednesday, NBA media reported that activist and prolific liar LeBron James, who is vaccinated, will also miss 10 days of action after his positive COVID test.

If anything, the Jordan Love game only further validates Rodgers' case for MVP anyway. Rodgers routinely leads his team to over 30 points and blowout victories. In the one game that Rodgers didn't play, Green Bay scored a total of zero points in meaningful game time and just one touchdown in garbage time. Love's lackluster performance proves how heavily the team relies on Rodgers. Even experts believe that the Packers are the best team in the NFL when Rodgers plays.

In a kick straight to the media's crotch, Rodgers could eliminate the Jordan Love game from the discussion entirely. If the Packers clinch the overall top seed in the NFC, that one loss without Rodgers won't mean anything. And Green Bay is in a solid position to end the season with the NFC's best record because of head-to-head tiebreakers over Arizona (currently a half-game ahead) and Los Angeles. The team also has complicated tiebreakers over Tampa and Dallas.

But for Rodgers to win the MVP award again, he'll have to pull away at such a distance that even Peter King can't help but vote for him. And Rodgers is en route to putting that pressure on voters.

According to FanDuel Sportsbook's MVP odds, Rodgers (+650) trails Tom Brady (+300) and Josh Allen (+420). Watch the media now gather around Brady only to slight Rodgers.

You might first ask what Josh Allen has done to deserve to be No. 2. I can't say for sure. Allen has a passer rating below 100, has thrown double-digit interceptions, and lost four games this season. Brady, on the other hand, has had a strong year, but he too has struggled over the past month. Brady has thrown six interceptions, two of which -- against the Saints and Washington -- cost his team a win. The Bucs have dropped two of their last four games.

Meanwhile, Rodgers has been on the field for only two losses this season. He leads the NFL in passer rating (of players who have played at least 10 games) and orchestrated two of the biggest wins of the season. He defeated the Cardinals without his top receiver and bested the Rams while short multiple offensive linemen.

As other great quarterbacks -- including media darling Patrick Mahomes -- have ebbed and flowed this season, Rodgers has consistently made clutch throws to seal wins, such as in the games against the Cardinals, 49ers, and Bengals, three likely playoff teams.

Yet Rodgers agrees that voters will want to blackball him.

"I think that's a legitimate statement," Rodgers said of McAfee's prediction that voters would no longer consider him for MVP.

Rodgers knows that nothing would irritate the media more than having to vote for him once again. Which explains Rodgers' laser-like focus and performance since his return. Aaron Rodgers is motivated to win the MVP, if only to laugh at the voters, the least valuable players in an industry filled with unstable people utterly incapable of controlling their emotions.

Follow Bobby Burack on Twitter.