Aaron Rodgers will not sit out the Super Bowl as some sort of Covid vaccine protest this season and Boomer Esiason never reported the Green Bay Packers quarterback would.

Esiason joined WEEI’s The Greg Hill Show in Boston and the former NFL MVP was promptly asked about the headlines that spread like wildfire last week.

“There will be some people out there that will still believe that that’s real news when in fact it was fake news,” Esiason said.

Friday afternoon, a viral video seemingly showed Esiason claiming on his WFAN morning show that according to a source, Rodgers will sit out the Super Bowl to protest the NFL’s Covid protocols, should Green Bay make it to the championship contest.

Rodgers has endured multiple public battles with Covid this season, both because the quarterback was infected by the virus and lied about his vaccination status. Since coming clean about refusing the Covid jab, Rodgers has been used as a poster boy for anti-vaxxers.

Esiason did receive a text from a random number making the bogus claim about Rodgers. But the edited video that went viral ignored the fact that Esiason and his radio co-host Gregg Giannotti quickly labeled the text as nothing more than a funny prank.

Although the video was disingenuous, the damage was done and the headline was picked up by hundreds of news outlets.

“Somebody took bits and pieces of our show, edited together and put it out there. And so-called legitimate news organizations jumped all over it,” Esiason told WEEI. “The Packers reacted to it, I think Aaron Rodgers reacted to it, and they reacted to a fake story.”

As the video made the rounds on social media, Rodgers responded to it and predictably mocked the report. But Esiason never felt the need to clear his name from the “fake news” story.

“I was not going to go into the sewer pit of social media and defend myself for anything,” Esiason said. “Because I did nothing wrong.”

Although he never reported Rodgers would skip the Super Bowl, Esiason might be more careful about the texts he reads over a 50,000 watt New York radio station and a show that gets simulcast nationally by CBS Sports Network.

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The post Boomer Esiason Blasts ‘So-Called Legitimate News Organizations’ for Spreading Aaron Rodgers Rumor: ‘They Reacted to a Fake Story’ first appeared on Mediaite.

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