JennaLaineESPN@JennaLaineESPN
With 432 passing yards today against the Rams, Tom Brady needs just 68 passing yards next week to break Drew Brees’ career passing yardage record. It’ll happen at Gillette Stadium.

Sam Monson@PFF_Sam
Real statement win from the Rams.

Bucs were the team expecting to come in and show where the class of the NFC needs to get to, and the Rams caused them problems on both sides of the ball.

For-real contenders

PFF@PFF
Cooper Kupp receiving lines this season:

Week 1 vs Bears
Small blue diamond 7 recs/108 yds/1 TD

Chris B. Brown@smartfootball
3 catches for 120 yards and a TD is the perfect DeSean Jackson statline

Week 2 vs Colts
9 recs/163 yds/2 TDs

Week 3 vs Bucs
9 recs/96 yards/2 TDs

Blaine Grisak@bgrisakDTR
The Rams defense hasn’t allowed a fourth down conversion or 20 points this year.

Rams24/7@Rams24_7
McVay now 4-1 vs Arians

TurfShowTimes@TurfShowTimes
There are five 3-0 teams:
Rams

Cardinals
Panthers
Broncos
Raiders

PARAM

Gameday Morning. Steve Wyche…..”Rams take on the Bucs, who ‘for the better part of 2 years, have been unstoppable’ “!!!

What?????

Yes, they are the defending Superbowl Champions
Yes, they’ve won 10 in a row, counting those 4 postseason games last year
Yes, they have the GOAT at QB and his favorite receiver at tight end
Yes, they have a young, fast defense

But ‘the better part of 2 years’ is not accurate.

They lost to the Saints on November 8th, 38-3. They lost to the Rams 27-24 on November 23rd and they lost to the Chiefs 27-24 on November 29th. Have they been good? Absolutely. Let’s see what happens this afternoon.

from https://theramswire.usatoday.com/2021/09/25/rams-nfl-week-3-buccaneers-expert-picks/

To get a sense of how close this game is expected to be, just take a quick look at who the experts are picking to win. According to NFL Pick Watch, 51% are taking the Buccaneers and 49% are picking the Rams. That’s the same split as the Packers and 49ers, with 51% taking Green Bay.

When it comes to the spread, it’s even closer. It’s an even split, 50-50, with half of the experts picking the Rams and half taking Tampa Bay. These are two evenly matched teams and it would be a major surprise if one side blows out the other.

The Rams are 1-1 against the spread this season, as are the Buccaneers. The Rams opened the week as slim favorites, but the line has since shifted in the Buccaneers’ direction, making Tampa Bay the 1.5-point favorite.

This is strangely comforting giving the incredible since of mental deterioration I've experienced since having COVID. A loss of brain volume is no joke. https://t.co/5C2BDfwZJP

— Mike McHargue (@mikemchargue) September 25, 2021

kupp has played 58 games for the rams.

here are his top 5 yardage games (2 of the 5 were against the bucs).

2019 – 220 yds, cin
2021 – 163 yds, ind
2018 – 162 yds, min
2020 – 145 yds, tam *
2019 – 121 yds, tam * pic.twitter.com/CqX4aFfcsc

— roberto clemente (@rclemente2121) September 26, 2021

Stafford's quick eyes in the red zone found the open man on the final look of his progression.@NFLMatchup | @GregCosell | @RamsNFL pic.twitter.com/reiBl9EPnu

— NFL Films (@NFLFilms) September 25, 2021

Ramuel L Jackson@RamuelLJackson
People really think the Rams have shown the whole playbook in just two games. No doubt in my mind McVay has some packages and situations specifically for Desean Jackson to remind everybody why they wanted him.

Jourdan Rodrigue@JourdanRodrigue
Darrell Henderson (ribs) and Jacob Harris (hip) the only Rams listed as “questionable” for Sunday vs Bucs.

Sean McVay on WRs Cooper Kupp and Robert Woods today, especially as it pertains to their behind-the-scenes & technical work in expanding this offense w Stafford: “Those two guys are as selfless and as productive of receivers as you could ever ask for. It’s awesome to be around.”

These are two notable blocks from David Edwards on Buckner. Jump set + independent hands in 1v1 pass pro then the backside hand in the run game to displace him. Whew. pic.twitter.com/iB4cBxFs3Z

— Brandon Thorn (@BrandonThornNFL) September 24, 2021

Rams Junkie

NFL Live segment on the Rams just now, here is your summary

Dan Orlovsky said: “Tampa Bay versus Atlanta on tape. The Falcons put an overload on one side. They put 3 defensive lineman on the left and one to th e right which forces communication and pass off up front. You could see the Rams doing that with Aaron Donald in this game. Zone pressure is something the Rams will do, make those tailbacks block a linebacker. The Bucs need to self scout and realize they put some stuff on tape that the Rams are definitely going to challenge. I am interested to see if the Bucs have corrected that.”

Schefter: “McVay’s health concern was described as a stomach bug”

Bucs reporter: “I pointed out to OC Bryon Leftwich you guys have not given up a sack to Donald that last two times you faced him and Leftwich said: Don’t jinx it.”

Brady completed 54% and threw 2 ints in the last game against the Rams last November and he got the ball out fast. Brady had season lows in yards per attempt, completion percentage, completion above expectation and had his 2nd worst off target percentage against the Rams last year. He had 2.34 seconds as an average time to throw which was his second shortest of the season. Brady reported as saying: “This is a tough match up because the Rams don’t give away much pre-snap. They hold disguises really well and they get home quickly on the pass rush so it is difficult to get to the second read.” Brady called Donald “One of the greatest defensive players of all time.”

Stopping Kupp is paramount. The Bus surrendered 145 yards to Kupp in the last time the Bus played the Rams because he is so shifty. The Bucs need better play at the Nickle position which they have not gotten

This is the only game the Bucs are not favored in all season.

Marcus Spears: “Aaron Donald presents quick pressure up the middle which prevents Brady from stepping up. The Rams cause Brady to become a below average quarterback. 99 presents those challenges but it impacts the rest of the defense. It is important that the other pass rushers produce. Aaron Donald is a King Snake.” Spears explained that a King Snake kills a Cobra. And said again: 99 is a King snake

Keyshawn: “Jordan Fuller Taylor Rapp Darious Williams are going to have to hit their assignments in coverage. They are not taking their guys off the field. Jaylen Ramsey we got that, those other guys might not be able to hold up. Its the other guys that have to come to the party.” Dan Orlovsky in response to Key: “Brady has always attacked the middle of the field. He is more aggressive about it now. So those safetys that you mentioned and the linebackers have to protect the middle of the field.”

Blaine Grisak@bgrisakDTR
The Buccaneers have lost five games with Tom Brady under center. In 3/5 of those games, teams have thrown the ball 40+ times. Teams have thrown 30+ in all five and averaged 40.8 pass attempts in wins over TB.

Federal Court: Anti-Vaxxers Do Not Have a Constitutional or Statutory Right to Endanger Everyone Else

* https://www.druganddevicelawblog.com/2021/09/federal-court-anti-vaxxers-do-not-have-a-constitutional-or-statutory-right-to-endanger-everyone-else.html

Today we discuss a putative class action in which the named plaintiffs are a registered nurse who refuses to take a basic precaution to protect her vulnerable patients and a mother who is more interested in displaying her livestock than protecting her neighbors. Brought on behalf of all New Mexico residents who are equally selfish, the plaintiffs sought an injunction barring the state from enforcing a public health order that requires (with limited exceptions) all hospital, nursing-home, assisted-living-facility, adult-day-care, rehabilitation-facility, and prison workers, all employees of the governor’s office, and all who would enter the New Mexico State Fair grounds to be vaccinated against the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID-19. The plaintiffs asserted various constitutional and statutory claims. In a thorough and trenchant decision, Valdez v. Grisham, — F. Supp. 3d —-, 2021 WL 4145746 (D.N.M. 2021), a federal district court rejected them all. That is consistent with long-standing precedent and other recent decisions—as we discussed here, here, and here.

The plaintiffs’ first claim was that requiring them to be vaccinated with “experimental” vaccines violated the FDCA. The claim was predicated on the fact that, at the time suit was filed, the three SARS-CoV-2 vaccines available in the United States—the Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson vaccines—had not received full FDA approval and were instead being distributed and administered under Emergency Use Authorizations (EUAs). The plaintiffs claimed that requiring them to be vaccinated violated the terms of the vaccines’ EUAs, which require that those receiving each vaccine be informed of its “benefits and risks” and “of the option to accept or refuse” its administration. 2021 WL 4145746, at *4.

The court rejected the plaintiffs’ FDCA claim.

Implicitly responding to the plaintiffs’ assertion that the vaccines were “experimental,” the court recited at the outset both the extensive testing that each had undergone before the EUAs were granted, including “at least one well-designed Phase 3 clinical trial that demonstrate[d] the vaccine’s safety and efficacy in a clear and compelling manner,” and the fact that “[c]omprehensive data collected since the three vaccines received EUA status demonstrates that they are safe and highly effective in preventing infection and severe illness, and that serious adverse side effects from the vaccines are exceedingly rare.” 2021 WL 4145746, at *1. The court further observed that, “despite Plaintiffs’ protestation to the contrary, the FDA has now given its full approval—not just emergency use authorization—to the Pfizer vaccine” for administration to those 16 and older. Id. at *4. That did not moot the plaintiffs’ statutory claim, however, because the livestock-display-over-human-health plaintiff asserted the claim on behalf of not only herself but also her 11- and 12-year-old children, who were also keen to “show[] their animals” at the state fair. Id. at *2.

Addressing the merits of the plaintiffs’ FDCA claim, the court found that there were none. It explained that although the EUAs issued pursuant to the FDCA require “medical providers” administering the vaccines to inform would-be recipients of the risks associated with each vaccine and their right to refuse it, the EUAs do not prohibit the state from requiring individuals, duly informed by their medical providers, to be vaccinated. Id. at *4. In so holding, the court cited both Bridges v. Houston Methodist Hosp., 2021 WL 2399994, at *2 (S.D. Tex. 2021), which rejected a nearly-identical anti-vaxxer claim on the ground that the FDCA “neither expands nor restricts the responsibilities of private employers” and “does not confer a private opportunity to sue the government,” and a recent Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel memorandum opinion concluding that the FDCA’s informed-consent provision “specifies only that certain information be provided to potential vaccine recipients and does not prohibit entities from imposing vaccination requirements.”

Having dispensed with their statutory claim, the court proceeded to dispense with the plaintiffs’ constitutional claims—brought under the Due Process, Equal Protection, and Contract Clauses.

Asserting a violation of their right to substantive due process, the plaintiffs alleged that they “‘have [constitutionally] protected liberty interests’ ‘in their right to live without governmental interference,’ their right ‘to bodily integrity,’ their right ‘to raise their children as they see fit,’ and their right ‘to engage in their chosen professions,’ and that because the state’s public health order is ‘not narrowly tailored,’ it violates these substantive due process rights.” 2021 WL 4145746, at *5.

Relying on well-established constitutional precedent, the court explained that a two-part analytic framework applies when a legislative enactment or executive action is challenged on substantive due-process grounds. The first step is to identify the “fundamental liberty interest” purportedly at issue. The second step is to determine whether that interest “is ‘deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition’ and ‘implicit in the concept of ordered liberty, such that neither liberty nor justice would exist if they were sacrificed.’” 2021 WL 4145746, at *5 (indirectly quoting Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U.S. 702, 720–21 (1997)). If the asserted liberty interest meets that standard, then the government may not infringe it “‘unless the infringement is narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest.’” Id. (quoting Glucksberg, 521 U.S. at 721). If, by contrast, the legislative enactment or executive action “does not implicate a fundamental right,” the action is permissible if it “bear a rational relationship to a legitimate government interest.” Id. (quotation marks omitted).

The court found that the plaintiffs did “not explain how the rights allegedly violated by the [public health order] are fundamental.” 2021 WL 4145746, at *5. “ndeed nowhere,” said the court, did the plaintiffs “address how the right to work in a hospital or attend the State Fair, unvaccinated and during a pandemic, is ‘deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition.’” Id.

In their request for preliminary relief, the plaintiffs relied on “the right to ‘engage in their chosen profession.’” 2021 WL 4145746, at *5. That, however, was no help to them, the court held, because “the Tenth Circuit”—the circuit within which the court sits—”has unequivocally held that the ‘right to practice in [one’s] chosen profession … does not invoke heightened scrutiny.’” Id. (quoting Guttman v. Khalsa, 669 F.3d 1101, 1118 (10th Cir. 2012)). Thus, said the court, “while Plaintiffs may ‘have a right to engage in their chosen professions,’ governmental infringement on this right will be “‘presumed to be valid’” so long as it is “‘rationally related to a legitimate state interest.”’” Id. (quoting Klaassen v. Trustees of Indiana Univ., 2021 WL 3073926, at *17 (N.D. Ind. 2021), in turn quoting City of Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Ctr., 473 U.S. 432, 440 (1985)).

Moreover, said the court, “federal courts have consistently held that vaccine mandates do not implicate a fundamental right and that rational basis review therefore applies in determining the constitutionality of such mandates.” 2021 WL 4145746, at *5. Applying that standard, the court rejected the plaintiffs’ substantive due-process claim, concluding that “[t]he vaccination requirements set forth in the [New Mexico public health order], … grounded in medicine and science, are rationally related to [the state’s] legitimate purpose of protecting our community ‘against an epidemic of disease [that] threatens the safety of its members.’” Id. at *8 (quoting Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11, 27 (1905)).

As Bexis did last month, the Valdez court explained that “[w]ith its decision in Jacobson”—which upheld “a Cambridge, Massachusetts regulation that required all adult inhabitants of that city, without exception, to be vaccinated against smallpox”—“the Supreme Court ‘settled that it is within the police power of a state to provide for compulsory vaccination.’” 2021 WL 4145746, at *6–7 (quoting Zucht v. King, 260 U.S. 174, 176 (1922)).

All that is necessary for state action to survive the “rational basis test” is that it bear “a rational relationship to a legitimate government interest.” Glucksberg, 521 U.S. at 721. The Valdez court found that New Mexico’s vaccination requirements did more than that, concluding that “[t]he governmental purpose of stemming the spread of COVID-19, especially in the wake of the Delta variant, is not only legitimate, but is unquestionably a compelling interest.” 2021 WL 4145746, at *7 (quotation marks omitted).

Having rejected plaintiffs’ substantive-due-process claim on the ground that that the New Mexico public health order requiring certain people to be vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2 “meets the rational basis test” (2021 WL 4145746, at *8), the Valdez court quickly disposed of the plaintiffs’ remaining constitutional claims. It concluded that the plaintiffs’ equal-protection, procedural-due-process, and impairment-of-contract claims were also subject to rational-basis review and that they therefore failed for the same reasons as the plaintiffs’ substantive-due-process claim. Id. at *9–11.

Finding that plaintiffs were unlikely to prevail on the merits of their claims, and that the remaining equitable factors likewise cut squarely against them, the court denied the preliminary injunction that the plaintiffs requested.

Onward to full vaccination.