Orrin Hatch says he is 'Grateful' for the NFL's 2017 MVP Award

Just days after Orrin Hatch said he was grateful for an editorial calling for his resignation, the longtime GOP senator from Utah took another misstep when he tweeted his gratitude to the NFL for naming him 2017's MVP. Hatch's tweet was referring to a Sports Illustrated article published Wednesday, 12/27/2017, in which the magazine named the 83 year old Senator MVP of the league. But like the editorial from The Salt Lake Tribune, the title was not intended as a compliment.

The Sports Illustrated article used Hatch as a pawn in a scathing critique of the NFL's lack of urgency in solving its concussion problem. The conclusion of the article states that Hatch must have been experiencing symptoms of a concussion to have thanked a newspaper for demanding his resignation. The magazine warned that if immediate action wasn’t taken, the league would risk being populated with a majority of players suffering from CTE and making mistakes at an Orrin Hatch level or worse. Sports Illustrated also asked for Hatch to resign.

A spokesperson for Hatch released a statement Thursday, reading, “Orrin has proudly served his political campaign donors and an elite circle of Utah residents for nearly 40 years. He has done so honorably and will forever be marked in history for his role in shaping the America we see before us today. Clearly the senator’s tweet was a tongue and cheek remark referring to the booing he often gets from constituents, similar surely to the boos that NFL MVPs often receive at the stadiums of their opponents. The Senator promises to rule over Utah for the next one hundred years with the help of cryogenic freezing. He will never resign.”