Cowboys: Ezekiel Elliott explained why he prioritized getting the COVID-19 vaccine

Dallas Cowboys running back Ezekiel Elliott revealed the reason why he received the COVID-19 vaccine.

NFL talk dominated the sports news cycle on Thursday, as the league laid down the law in regards to COVID-19 vaccinations. The NFL told teams that if any game can not be rescheduled during the season due to a COVID-19 outbreak among unvaccinated players, then that team with the outbreak will have to forfeit. That has caused a debate amongst players in the NFL, most notably Arizona Cardinals wide receiver DeAndre Hopkins.

As for Dallas Cowboys running back Ezekiel Elliott, he said following training camp practice on Thursday that he received the vaccine this offseason to ensure he will be with the team on a weekly basis.

Cowboys: Ezekiel Elliott reveals why he received the COVID-19 vaccine.

“I got the vaccine just because I wanted to put myself in the best situation to be out there for my team week in and week out,” Elliott said, via the Cowboys’ official website. “But I mean not everyone feels that strongly or maybe other people still have their view of vaccines. You can’t force someone to do something they don’t want to do with their body.”

Elliott got vaccinated because he wanted to make sure his chances of being sidelined due to COVID-19 were minimized throughout the upcoming season. Last summer, Elliott was one of the more prominent NFL players to contract COVID-19. Now, he took it upon himself to get vaccinated.

As Elliott touches upon in the quote above, he says he is not going to force any one of his teammates to get the vaccine. He elaborated further in the quote below.

“I think that’s kind of a touchy subject. You can’t really tell someone what to do with their body,” Elliott said. “I grew up in a family where we didn’t get vaccines, so it’s kind of hard to tell someone who, their whole life their mom and dad tell them not to get vaccines, to go get vaccinated.”

The COVID-19 vaccine is certainly a point of contention in the NFL. But the fact of the matter is that the NFL is strongly encouraging players on all 32 teams to get the vaccine to make sure there are no hiccups during the upcoming season, especially with the Delta variant of the coronavirus rapidly spreading across the globe.