Category Archives: morality

NFL Management Hypocrisy

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This is from the NFL’s 2017 Rulebook; Section 4 Equipment, Uniforms, Player Appearance; Article 8 Personal Messages:

Throughout the period on game-day that a player is visible to the stadium and television audience (including in pregame warm-ups, in the bench area, and during postgame interviews in the locker room or on the field)….

The League will not grant permission for any club or player to wear, display, or otherwise convey messages, through helmet decals, arm bands, jersey patches, or other items affixed to game uniforms or equipment, which relate to political activities or causes, other non-football events, causes or campaigns, or charitable causes or campaigns.

This is the spirit, if not the letter, of the NFL’s pretended attitude toward on-field player political statements like attacking our flag and national anthem.

Plainly, NFL management has no standards it considers important enough to enforce.

A Packer Shows an Alternative

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At the start of Thursday night’s NFL game, the Bears and Packers players stood for the national anthem with linked arms.  I’m frankly a squish about civilians and hands on hearts during the national anthem; that’s a practice that’s become so ubiquitous, long before the NFL’s current assault on our flag and our national anthem, that the failure to put one’s hand on one’s heart during the anthem has become—almost—OK.  The players all stood, no one kneeled, and that’s good progress.

However, this image presents Randall Cobb, Wide Receiver, standing on Aaron Rodgers’ (No 12) right, showing the way: linked arms and still with his hand on his heart.

The beauty of Cobb’s move is emphasized by the player on his right: linked arms with a Black Power clenched fist—a deprecation of our flag and anthem that only enhances Cobb’s gesture.

Taking a Knee vs Taking a Knee

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The NFL and its players think taking a knee when our flag is displayed and our national anthem is played is appropriate.

Congressman Brian Mast (R, FL) had this on his Facebook page:

The NFL doles out penalties for celebrating a touchdown, but won’t require respect for our flag?

I have taken a knee after jumping out of a helicopter as we looked for the enemy, taken a knee in front of the Soldiers Cross as we mourned a fallen brother and taken a knee in church.

Here’s the image that accompanies his post:

Oh, yeah—I neglected to mention that Congressman Mast lost both legs to an IED while serving as a bomb disposal expert in Afghanistan.  And he’s still standing.

Crap.  If these “players”—to bang my drum—don’t liked some of the things our nation does, they should protest those things, they should argue against our nation’s doing them, they should go out and work actual solutions instead of attacking the symbols of the nation—and through that, the nation itself—that protects their right to do despicable things.

Instead of being a pack of porch dogs, they should get into the game.

 

H/t to FoxNews insider

Some Advice

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…for NFL players and owners who are pretending to protest police mistreatment of minorities while actually attacking our flag and national anthem and insulting families who’ve lost veterans and the veterans themselves who fought, were maimed, were killed for these Precious Ones’ right to attack our flag and national anthem.

The advice comes from an ex-Buffalo Bills New Era Stadium security guard who resigned his job of 30 years over the Bills’ shameful kneeling display last Sunday.

[P]players [should] go out into the community and try to solve problems rather than simply kneeling and saying, “There’s a problem. Someone else fix it.”

Of course, that would require them to do actual work within the communities they think are so abused.  It would require them to speak from the vast array of platforms they have as celebrated athletes other than metaphorically stomping on our flag and national anthem.

It would require that they take more substantive action than just virtue signaling from the safety of the literal sidelines.

A Couple Thoughts on the NFL Players’ “Protests”

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The Wall Street Journal ran a couple of pieces on this, one by Matthew Futterman and Andrew Beaton (Behind the NFL’s Frantic Scramble to Hit Back at Trump) and the other an op-ed by Jason Riley.

The former centered on the purported disarray among the NFL’s management, players, players union, owners, and coaches as they tried to figure out how to ride the tiger they’d turned loose with their “protests.”  The latter was a sort of coming-of-age piece wherein Riley went from national anthem sitter to a national anthem stander.

My two thoughts are closely related to each other.  This is my view of the Futterman and Beaton piece:

….players—many of whom say they are deeply offended by the president’s statements….

That’s OK–many of us are deeply offended by players’ attacks on our flag and national anthem.

Goodell had released a statement that Trump had shown “an unfortunate lack of respect for the NFL…failure to understand the overwhelming force for good [we] represent in our communities.”

Where is the good in the NFL’s divisive attacks on our national symbols? Where is the NFL’s respect for these?

These Precious Ones claim to protest inequities against minorities. This is nonsense. Were they interested in protesting inequities against minorities, they’d do that instead of attacking our flag and anthem. Were they interested in working against those inequities, they’d go into communities and work the problems rather than kneeling on the safety of the sidelines saying, “There’s a problem. Someone else fix it.”

This is what Riley’s piece generated in my pea brain:

The players have said they are protesting the unjust treatment of blacks by law enforcement….

This is nonsense. If the players wanted to protest unjust treatment, they would protest unjust treatment. Instead, they’re attacking our flag and our national anthem, and they’re insulting Gold Star families and veterans who fought, many of whom were maimed or killed in those fights, for these guys’ right to protest.

The stereotype of “dumb jock” was ugly 50 years ago, and it’s no prettier today. These players know full well what they’re doing; perpetuating that stereotype by pretending they don’t is as ugly as the stereotype.