A diva grows in Green Bay

 Well. Now we know something you can spell without "Aaron Rodgers."

You can spell "team player." Also, "team first." Also, "straight shooter."

You can spell all of those without Aaron Rodgers, because Aaron Rodgers is none of those. First he lies to the media about being vaccinated, or at the very least head-fakes the truth ("Yes, I've been immunized," he said, although he obviously wasn't). Then he traipses his unvaccinated self around without masking up, violating league rules and quite possibly exposing his teammates to the Bastard Plague.

Finally, of course, he tests positive for the BP -- who didn't see that coming? --and gets himself put into quarantine with the Packers at 7-1 and battling for supremacy in the NFC.

A team player he is not, in other words. Team first he is not.

He is, it seems, something of a diva after all, a guy who apparently thinks the rules that apply to everyone around him don't apply to him. And now he's sidelined because, I don't know, he believed it was his "personal choice"  or something not to do what he had to do to keep himself on the field.

For that, you can make him into some kind of principled freedom fighter if you want. The Blob prefers the more accurate description: Selfish.

I don't know exactly when this country lost its damn mind. Some say it was when we elected a self-aggrandizing circus clown president in 2016, although the brain fever that elected him clearly predates him. What I do know is at some point anti-vaxxers transformed from the fringe loonies they are into a voting bloc championed by some of our less-hinged elected officials. It is a wonder.

And so, as a pandemic continues to kill Americans at an alarming rate -- we're closing in on a million dead now -- there is a significant swath of Americans that refuses to get vaccinated against it, believing it's the vaccine that's actually killing us. Also, that it causes autism or the Heartbreak of Psoriasis or whatever.

And suddenly, common sense measures like requiring schoolkids to mask up are being treated like the Intolerable Acts by crazed mobs of alleged grownups -- whose example to their children is you don't have to obey the rules if you don't agree with them, and it's OK to shout down anyone who says otherwise. Some great parenting there, boy.

Now, I'm not saying Aaron Rodgers is the avatar for all that. But when he talks about how much "research" he's done, you can't help rolling your eyes. Because where have we heard that nonsense before?

In any case, the Packers will now be forced to start Jordan Love at quarterback against the Chiefs, thanks to all that "research" Rodgers has done. The Diva, meanwhile, will sit at home, secure in his principled stand or whatever this is. Bully for him.

It's his right not to get vaccinated if he chooses. But it's ours to regard him as being stubborn or a weenie or a giant douche because of it.

And so the Blob does.