After more of than a year of political sideline shenanigans by disrespectful players and severe alienation of the NFL's fan base, team owners are finally coming to their senses and trying to save their freefalling enterprise. Dallas Cowboys' owner Jerry Jones says any of his players who disrespect the flag will take a seat on the bench during the game. The Miami Dolphins have now made it a rule to stand. Liberal media and the NFL Players' Union are joining in opposition to Jones and his new hard-line approach.
Three weeks ago Jones and his players knelt prior to the playing of the national anthem in a game at Arizona. Now he realizes the league can no longer sustain drastic losses of public support and declining ticket sales and TV ratings:
If we are disrespecting the flag, then we won’t play. Period. Period. We’re going to respect the flag. We cannot in the NFL, in any way, give the implication that we tolerate disrespecting the flag. We cannot do that. Understand? We will not … if we are disrespecting the flag, then we will not play. Period.
Dolphins' head coach Adam Case spoke with members of his team and the team called for players to stand. Holdout renegades Kenny Stills, Julius Thomas and Michael refused to honor America and stayed in the locker room.
Fox Sports' Speak For Yourself co-host Colin Cowherd spoke against Jones, saying, "Now we're framing it as Jerry Jones is not for racial equality. That's not the Jerry Jones I've watched for 30 years as a players' owner."
An ESPN blog serving black readers, The Undefeated sided with the last holdouts among the dissenters and argues NFL rules don't require players to stand for the anthem. Jason Reid ignored the business sense of putting a halt to activities that are seriously damaging the NFL and tied team crackdowns on protests to President Trump and Vice-President Pence, who oppose the kneeling:
Not surprisingly, the union responded swiftly. George Atallah, assistant executive director of external affairs for the NFL Players Association, took to Twitter to remind the public, including NFL owners and the nation’s two highest-elected officials, that the rights written in the Constitution also apply to NFL players.
USA Today sports has taken a very strong stance in favor of the player protests and raps Trump at every opporunity. In an interview with video host Trysta Krick, sports columnist Nancy Armour said the Cowboys and Dolphins are taking their cues from the White House:
The point (of VP Mike Pence walking out of Sunday's game at Indianapolis when 49ers' players kneeled) was to rile up the base and sew further division. A lot of it was to send a message to NFL owners and say you will abide by what we want, not support players anymore. ... That was probably the point of what the White House was thinking of doing. This little stunt (of Pence's) was to send a message to owners and trying to get them back into line.
There's a lot of hypocrisy by Jerry Jones who's signed drug addicts. Will he close concession sales during the anthem? A lot of people are walking around during the national anthem and not paying attention. Will he toss out every person talking, texting or tweeting? There's a lot of disrespect going on during the national anthem, and it's not the players who are doing it. There will be a lot of pushback to this.
Three men on Fox Sports 1 pushed back against the protesters. The Cowboys' field is Jones' platform, said Jason Whitlock, who co-hosts Speak For Yourself with Cowherd. "This whole thing with these NFL players -- 'my platform, my platform' -- it's not your platform. You don't own the team. You didn't create it. Your platform is on Twitter. When you put that uniform on that's the Dallas Cowboys' uniform. You're now representing the Dallas Cowboys. It's no different than if you worked at McDonald's. They don't want you to include politics with your serving of McDonald's food. They don't want politics introduced to football because the culture is split 50-50. This is a 'TV show' that's gone off script in a way that's damaging to all the partners."
Former Dallas defensive coordinator Rob Ryan agreed with Whitlock: "There's not any jobs out there where you can protest on the job. Do it on a different platform. Keep it off the sideline. Let's play football and let's not worry about politics. This is football, this is not politics."
Tony Gonzalez, a Hall of Fame tight end, also appeared on the same program and said the protests have run their course. "They made their point, some big stuff happened and it's coming to an end. It's become a huge distraction to the sport that we love. Let's get back to playing football."
