Unvaccinated Bills player fined $100K for COVID-19 protocol issues: Report

Buffalo Bills wide receiver Cole Beasley has been fined multiple times for breaking COVID-19 protocols, reaching a cumulative sum in the range of $100,000. 

Sources told ESPN on Sunday that the league first fined Beasley $14,6000 in August after he did not comply with mandatory health and safety protocols for unvaccinated players. 

Beasley was issued the fine when league officials visited his team’s facility to review COVID-19 protocol with the Bills, according to ESPN. 

League sources said Beasley’s initial $14,600 fine has doubled on more than one occasion, with multiple sources estimating that the player’s fines have reached the league’s $100,000 limit or are just short of that amount. 

This comes as Beasley, who is in his 10th season in the league, missed his team’s contest against the New England Patriots after testing positive for the novel coronavirus. 

According to the league’s COVID-19 rules, Beasley will still be paid his full game salary even though he missed a game due to COVID-19. This is the first time he has been placed on his team’s COVID-19 reserve list. 

Beasley has been a prominent voice against vaccines, threatening to defy the NFL’s COVID-19 protocol through now-deleted tweets. 

“Hi, I’m Cole Beasley and I’m not vaccinated,” Beasley posted on Twitter earlier this year. “I will be outside doing what I do. I’ll be out in the public. If your scared of me then steer clear, or get vaccinated. Point. Blank. Period.” 

“I may die of covid, but I’d rather die actually living. I have family members whose days are numbered. If they want to come see me and stay at my house then they are coming regardless of protocol,” he added.

The NFL recently revised its COVID-19 protocols by loosening testing requirements for fully vaccinated players who are not exhibiting any virus symptoms, ending the weekly testing mandate for those players.

The Hill has reached out to the NFL for more information.