The NFL unveiled its new COVID-19 protocols for training camp and the preseason this week, which puts heavy restrictions on what unvaccinated football players are allowed to do. The strict coronavirus restrictions were agreed to by the NFL Players Association, which frustrated several professional football players.

The NFL released its COVID-19 protocols Wednesday, which dictates that coaches and staff must be vaccinated, but players have the option. However, unvaccinated NFL players are severely restricted, while vaccinated players have far more freedoms and return to near pre-pandemic rules.

“Individuals who are not fully vaccinated, including players, will be prohibited from gathering outside club facilities or team travel. NFL players who are not fully vaccinated will be barred from going to nightclubs, bars, house parties, concerts, etc,” the league stated.

Players are prohibited from house gatherings of more than 15 people unless all participants are wearing PPE.

Failure to follow the new rules could result in fines of $50,000 for a first offense.

The NFL has made it clear that unvaccinated players will have a much tougher time in the preseason than those who have received the coronavirus vaccine.

— Tom Pelissero (@Tom Pelissero)

Some players have already voiced their displeasure at the constraining new rules set by the NFL and NFL Players Association.

Buffalo Bills wide receiver Cole Beasley called the new regulations “crazy,” and blasted the NFLPA.

“This is crazy. Did we vote on this? I stay in the hotel. We still have meetings. We will all be together,” Beasley wrote on Twitter. “Vaccinated players can go out the hotel and bring covid back in to where I am. So what does it matter if I stay in the hotel now? 100 percent immune with vaccination? No.”

“So what are we really talking about? I understand completely why the NFL is doing this,” he tweeted. “It gives them back the freedom to make the most money as possible again if everyone is vaccinated. But will anyone fight for the players or nah?”

“The players association is a joke. Call it something different. It’s not for the players,” Beasley continued. “Everyone gives me the 98 percent of people who are vaccinated don’t get covid again. The odds of me getting in the NFL and playing for 10 years are lower than that and I’m here.”

Beasley was asked why he didn’t want to get vaccinated, to which he responded, “Why does it matter what my reasons are? It’s a personal choice. That means I don’t have to explain to anyone why I do what I do. Just like everything else in my life.”

— Cole Beasley (@Cole Beasley)

Cincinnati Bengals running back Joe Mixon also slammed the NFL Players Association for heavily restricting players who didn’t want to get vaccinated.

“The @NFLPA is not for the players they act like they represent us and they clearly show us different time & time again,” Mixon tweeted.

“I thought Football was a team sport and it’s clearly being individualized by beliefs,” he added.

Mixon clarified that he is not against vaccines or anyone who wants to get vaccinated, “I love everybody and I show love to everyone vaccinated or not. I RESPECT EVERYBODY who decides to get the vaccine or not. I’M NOT AGAINST EITHER! I WILL FIGHT & DIE FOR A RESPECTED DECISION.”

— ⚡️Primetime!!!⚡️ (@⚡️Primetime!!!⚡️)

An NFL agent told ESPN that 60% of his clients are fully vaccinated.

Of the NFL’s 32 franchises, 16 teams have 51 or more players who are vaccinated against COVID-19, according to NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero.

Washington Football Team coach Ron Rivera estimated 50% of his players have gotten the coronavirus vaccine, and noted that a few more plan to get vaccinated after the team brought in an infectious disease professor from Harvard to talk to players about the COVID-19 vaccine.

One Washington Football Team player who was not persuaded to get the vaccine was defensive end Montez Sweat.

“I’m not a fan of it,” Sweat said of the coronavirus vaccine on Wednesday. “I probably won’t get vaccinated until I get more facts and that stuff. I’m not a fan of it at all. I haven’t caught COVID yet so I don’t see me treating COVID until I actually get COVID.”

Unvaccinated fans are allowed to attend training camps, but must practice social distancing and remain more than 20 feet from players and team staff.

Andrew Symonds was known for his larrikin sense of humour on and off the field, and that shone through as his final text message was revealed on Sunday.

Symonds, 46, was killed when his 4WD left the road and rolled in Hervey Range, about 50km west of Townsville in far north Queensland at around 10.30pm on Saturday.

At 8.45 that night, the cricket legend sent a message to Steve Crawley, the boss of Fox Sports, where Symonds worked as a commentator.

Symonds – pictured with his fellow commentator Kath Loughnan at Shane Warne’s memorial – sent a hilarious text to Fox Sports boss Steve Crawley shortly before he died 

It contained a grab of news that American football superstar Tom Brady will be paid a staggering $540million over 10 years to work as a commentator for Fox’s US arm, according to the Courier Mail.

Off contract with Fox Sports, Symonds wrote: ‘Crawls, we need to talk. Roy.’ 

Crawley also offered an insight into the sort of man Symonds was.

‘When he first started doing a bit of commentary towards the end of his playing days, he said he’d commentate for us if our kids could sit with him while he did it,’ he told the publication.

‘He wasn’t doing that for himself. He made their day.’

Meanwhile, cricket star Nathan Lyon has revealed the haunting words Andrew Symonds shared with him at Shane Warne’s memorial service as he joins the rest of Australia in grieving after the all-rounder died in a car accident.

‘Roy’, as he was affectionately known, shared a haunting conversation with Nathan Lyon at the service for their mate Shane Warne

Lyon posted a heartfelt tribute to his fellow Test star, calling him an inspiration to many

Devastated cricketers past and present have paid tribute to the legendary all-rounder since the tragic news broke, with Lyon posting some heartfelt words on Instagram and revealing a startling conversation he had with ‘Roy’ at their mate Shane Warne’s memorial service in March.

‘I am heartbroken by the news we all woke up too this morning. It was only 2 months ago at Warnie’s memorial service, Roy and I had a good chat and both agreed it was to young to leave us… now this!’ Lyon wrote.

‘RIP mate, a true legend of the game we love and inspiration to so many! My thoughts and prayers go out to his family, kids and friends!’

While Symonds’ playing career was over by the time Lyon made his Test debut in 2011, they both shared a mateship with Warne, who died of a heart attack in Thailand on March 4, aged just 52.

The hard-hitting all-rounder played many matches with the spin king as Australia swept all before them in the early 2000s, and Lyon has previously said he ‘always idolised’ the sheikh of tweak.

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Andrew Symonds’ hilarious final text message revealed as Nathan Lyon shares haunting conversation

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Watch what happens when Andy Cohen introduces his 3-year-old son, Ben, to pop icon Cher.

In an Instagram video on Sept. 16, Cohen announces that he and Ben started their morning with a Cher-heavy playlist.

“What do you think of Cher?” Cohen asks.

“She was a singer,” a tiny voice says off-screen. “She was singing too loud for me.”

But the Bravo host — who is a diehard fan — refuses to accept Ben’s review. 

“You loved it,” Cohen tells him. He then reminds the preschooler that Cher reminded him of of Elsa from Disney’s “Frozen,” because “they’re both good singers.” 

“It wasn’t too loud,” Cohen says.

“Yeah, it was,” the little boy replies.

“It was Cher,” Cohen says, to which Ben quips, “It was Elsa.”

It’s only a matter of time until Ben is belting the lyrics to “If I Could Turn Back Time.” As Cohen explains to Ben in the clip, “There’s gonna be a lot of Cher in your life.”

During a 2019 appearance on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,” Cohen revealed Cher has nicknames for him and his BFF Anderson Cooper.

“We have a little bit of a texting relationship, Cher and I. It’s crazy,” Cohen shared. “She says I’m the evil one, and Anderson’s like the nice one saving the world.”

Cohen welcomed his second child, a daughter named Lucy, in April. Both of his kids were born with the help of a surrogate.

Luckily, Benjamin is more fond of Lucy than he is of Cher.

After bringing Lucy home from the hospital earlier this year, Cohen asked if it was fun to have his little sister at home.

“Yes, I love her,” Ben gushed.

Series co-creator Sterlin Harjo attends the series premiere of Reservation Dogs in Hollywood, Calif., Aug. 5, 2021.

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Series co-creator Sterlin Harjo attends the series premiere of Reservation Dogs in Hollywood, Calif., Aug. 5, 2021.

Reservations Dogs co-creator and showrunner Sterlin Harjo says he grew up surrounded by the “best storytellers in the world.”

Harjo remembers sitting in his grandmother’s kitchen as a kid, listening to tales of amazing characters — either real or imagined — often doing mundane or ordinary things. The magic was in the telling; a story about someone making a simple run to the store could be infused with sadness and regret, coincidence and magic.

“That’s how I learned to tell stories. … You can’t say that cinema is a Native American art form, but storytelling is, ” Harjo says. “I try to capture just a small amount of that in [Reservation Dogs].”

Reservation Dogs is the first and only TV series where every writer, director and series regular is Indigenous. Part comedy and part drama, the FX series streaming on Hulu follows four teenagers who long to escape the dead ends they face living on a reservation. They’re frustrated and alienated, caught between what’s left of traditional Native culture on the reservation and the broader pop culture. The show highlights the importance of Native traditions — while also mocking how tradition can be turned into sanctimonious pop culture clichés.

Harjo belongs to the Seminole and Muscogee Nations, and he says the positive feedback from his community — including his parents — is what keeps him going: “My dad, one day, said to me, ‘This show has given people, Native people, a reason to hold their heads up a little higher.'”

Last Halloween, Harjo noticed something he hadn’t seen before: “Every year at Halloween, there’s people that dress up in these fake, dime-store Indian clothing. And they are ‘Indian’ for Halloween. And we’ve all seen that growing up. We’ve all seen it. And my kids are going to have to see it. But all of a sudden, after Season 1, people, kids started dressing up as the Reservation Dogs. So many pictures flooded in on social media of them dressed as the Reservation Dogs.”

Interview highlights

On why he prefers the term “Indian” to “Native American”

My grandma said “Indian,” so I’m not here to change what my grandma said. And it’s what I know. I’m sorry that Christopher Columbus got it wrong, but that’s what we call ourselves, you know? That’s what we call ourselves. I also say “Native” and I say “Indigenous.” Just depending on where I’m at and who I’m talking to, those are all interchangeable to me. “Native American” is just a mouthful.

On the show’s name Reservation Dogs title paying homage to Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs

It came out when I was in college, and it was right as I discovered that I could be a filmmaker. … My father had a friend who worked for the cable company, and that’s the only way that we got cable. So I was able to watch movies for free because his friend did some backdoor stuff and hooked us up with a cable box that allowed us to watch HBO and Showtime. I just became immersed in movies and pop culture. MTV was out at the time. I think that when you’re from a rural community, that’s kind of how you live your life. You almost live your life through movies and through pop culture. … First of all, it’s a catchy title, not a lie, Taika [Waititi] and I came up with it. And then it was, well, if we’re going to have this show where these kids are living through and constantly referencing pop culture, like we have to tip our hat to the master of that.

On playing with the stereotypical “Indian warrior” imagery in the pilot

Most of the time people are very precious with Native people, like, “This is no laughing matter.” This is very serious and stoic, and that’s kind of how the world is trained to view us. We realize we need to bake into the show permission to laugh with us.

Paulina Alexis, Devery Jacobs, D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, and Lane Factor play the title characters in Reservations Dogs, a series about teenagers living on a reservation in Oklahoma.

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Paulina Alexis, Devery Jacobs, D’Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, and Lane Factor play the title characters in Reservations Dogs, a series about teenagers living on a reservation in Oklahoma.

And I think that that spirit character, he comes in at this moment in the pilot. … If I asked most people in the world to draw a Native American, that’s what they would draw. They would draw an Indian that was dressed in buckskins from the 1800s. They wouldn’t draw me. They wouldn’t draw any of the characters on the show. So it was almost like giving people some familiar territory and then turning it on its head.

On growing up on the Muscogee Reservation in Oklahoma

Right now I live on the Muscogee Reservation, which is part of Tulsa. Through a lot of complicated government policy and interactions with tribal governments that I can’t go into because it’d be another show, it was not identified as a reservation before, but it is now. But if you look at Oklahoma, it used to be Indian Territory, which was essentially one big reservation. Then, of course, oil and the land and other things disrupted that.

But this is where Trail of Tears ended. This is where all of the tribes that were forcibly removed by the U.S. government were brought to Indian Territory, which is Oklahoma now. So essentially it was one giant reservation. And you go an hour in any direction in Oklahoma or 30 minutes in any direction, in Oklahoma, you’re going to be in a new tribal territory, with different tribal languages on the stop signs and on signage in the town. Different cultures, different customs. And so it’s … a melting pot of Indigenous Native people from America. And I think there’s something like 38 tribes here.

So you grow up different when you’re in Oklahoma as a Native kid. … People know Native culture, people know who Native people are. And it’s a very diverse state. I think that not a lot of people know about Oklahoma and the diversity here, but in rural Oklahoma, it’s very diverse. And I don’t know, it was something that I wanted to celebrate in the show, growing up in Indian Territory, Oklahoma.

On why Native teens connected to rap music when he was coming of age

Rap was reaching the height of popularity … and being a Native kid, we gravitated towards it because it was the sort of punk rock that we were growing up with. It gave Native kids a culture and identity that they could grab a hold of at a time where our own identity was a bit lost and our own identity was less celebrated, we could grab a hold of hip-hop, and that became something that we could identify with that was taking it to the man that was exposing problems within our culture. I think that it became something that, as a term, as a means of endearment to us, that it helped us in our own identity and in our own struggle.

On the importance of ghosts and spirits in his culture – and in his work

I think that part of growing up and with Muscogee and Seminole culture is death is such a part of our experience. It’s very community-driven. Your cousins are like your brothers and sisters. Your aunts are your extended parents, and you’re close to your elders and everyone’s a part of this tight community.

I was constantly at funerals. I’ve been a pallbearer, like, 12 to 15 times, I think, give or take. And our songs, the songs that we sing, there’s these spiritual songs that we sing that mostly get sung and you hear them at funerals, and it’s all about facing death and mortality head on. There’s something really beautiful about a funeral in our community, where everyone comes together and it’s really funny. And you’re getting to see people that you haven’t seen in a long time and you say, “I love you,” to people that you wouldn’t normally say, “I love you” to. It’s just a part of being in a community.

Someone was always passing away. … In the culture you’re taught that they’re not gone and that you can still speak to them and talk to them and there’s ghost stories and things like that. But I just grew up with this sense of magic, and there’s a sense of like we can communicate, we can reach people in other places, and there’s ceremonies for it and there’s different things. It’s something that I’m fascinated with … and I explore it as much as I can through my work.

On the casting process for Reservation Dogs

You can’t go to Hollywood to cast a show like this. … [Native actors usually] get to play, like, a dead Indian outside of a teepee every five to 10 years, you know? So there’s not a big pool of Native actors in L.A. So we went to the communities, and shout out to Angelique Midthunder, who was our casting director. She went in and we went to different communities and we also had tapes sent to us from communities, but it was important that they were from an Indigenous community. … It wasn’t unnecessarily unorthodox for me, because I’ve been making these films for so long, and I know that there’s talent out there. There’s just not opportunities for Native actors to even know that there’s an opportunity to be in a movie.

On seeing Indian stereotypes in pop culture as a kid

My dad watched Westerns. … There was a way to sort of separate what was happening in the Western for me, because I didn’t recognize the Indians in the Western. They weren’t my experience. When you grow up and your grandma and your mom and your dad and everyone’s Native around you, and then you see this version of Native people in these Westerns that are just the bad guys that are faceless and sort of like the zombies. … They’re in the way and the white man has to exterminate them for Western expansion purposes and to tame the West or whatever, I don’t recognize that as my people. So it wasn’t painful to watch for me. I could separate it. I do see the issues in that now I have to explain to my kids why they can’t watch Peter Pan, and if there was a Western on, I would have to explain to them, like everything all of a sudden becomes a lecture, where I’m having to talk about film analysis with my children. It has an effect.

On absolving himself of the guilt that he can’t speak Muscogee

For a long time, I felt really guilty about that. … But at a certain point, I just came to the realization that government policy, genocide, colonization, … the forced removal by Andrew Jackson. So many things caused that. And I let go of that sense of guilt, because it’s all been about survival and there’s things that were taken away and there’s things that perish because of that. And all I can do is try to learn and realize that it’s not my fault, it came before me. The darkness that can take a language away, came before me. And you look at boarding schools … and how they actively took away our language. My parents and grandparents went to these boarding schools, so the fact that we have any of it left is a miracle. So I try to really focus on that: the miracle of it, the magic of the fact that we still have our culture and it is about survival. I try to focus on that instead of the guilt that I think you grow up with when you can’t speak the language.

Lauren Krenzel and Susan Nyakundi produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Beth Novey adapted it for the web.