The Minnesota Vikings have an off day on Wednesday, but the team’s franchise quarterback has still made several headlines. Kirk Cousins recently joined Good Morning Football’s Kyle Brandt on his podcast and had this to say on COVID-19.
One takeaway from this piece posted by the Star Tribune’s Andrew Krammer should be to look past headlines in journalism. Several headlines took the comments out of context and only focused on Cousin’s “if I die, I die” comment.
Cousins noted that he is going to wear his mask because he has the respect for the people around him that are more concerned about the virus.
“I want to respect other people’s concerns, but for me personally, if you’re talking about no one else can get the virus, what is your concern you could get it? I’d say I’m going to go about my daily life. If I get it, I’m going to ride it out. I’m going to let nature do its course,” Cousins said. “Uhh, survival of the fittest kind of approach and just say if it knocks me out, it knocks me out. I’m going to be okay. Even if I die, I die. I kind of have peace about that. That’s really where I fall on it, so my opinion on wearing a mask is really about being respectful to other people. It really has nothing to do with my personal thoughts.”
Many headlines took from this the “if I die, I die” comment, but there is clearly much more to what Cousins said. He is allowed to have his personal beliefs and is still going to wear his mask out of respect for the people around him.
Articles in today’s world have really switched over to the art of “click baiting” individuals to attempt to gain more reads on a certain article. Unfortunately, this leads to a big majority of people only reading the headlines, without getting any context on the full length of the article.
It’s important to understand that everyone in this world is titled to their own opinions. Even if Cousins isn’t afraid of COVID-19 personally, he is still wearing his mask out of respect for those around him.