Indianapolis Colts quarterback Carson Wentz was activated from the Reserve/COVID-19 List Thursday, along with wide receiver Zach Pascal and center Ryan Kelly.
Wentz met with the media shortly thereafter, and was asked about his vaccination status after being deemed a "high-risk close contact" forced him to be away from the team for five days. In late-July, Wentz declined to say whether he was vaccinated, but said that whether he was or not was a "personal decision." He didn't deviate much from that script Thursday.
"But I will say that it's a personal decision for me and my family," Wentz said to the collective media, including Kevin Bowen. "I respect everybody else's decision and I just ask that everybody does the same for me. I know that's not the world that we live in, everyone isn't going to view things the same. No one really knows what is going on in someone else's household and how things are being handled. So, it's a personal decision, that's just where I'm at on it. With the protocols and everything the way that they are, really for us, it's all about understanding things clearly and making sure that we are dotting our i's and crossing our t's, all of those things, so that we can avoid what happened this week."
As NFL Media's Nick Shook reminds us, only players who aren't fully vaccinated are forced to sit out a minimum of five days when they are close contacts.
Tom Pelissero of NFL Media reported last week that as part of the NFL's regular season protocols, players who are fully vaccinated -- one Johnson & Johnson shot or two of the Pfizer or Moderna shots -- can't be deemed high-risk close contacts. Since Wentz was, that confirms that he's not fully vaccinated. And seemingly if he was in the process of getting fully vaccinated, he'd say that.
Wentz had surgery on his left foot in early August, which came with a recovery timeline of 5-12 weeks. The five-day absence has further clouded his availability for the Colts Week 1 tilt with the Seattle Seahawks.
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