Showing posts with label Buffalo Bills. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Buffalo Bills. Show all posts

Sunday, September 24, 2017

Defiant Players Set To Kneel, Avoid Anthem As Trump Calls For NFL Boycott

Update (12:00 pm ET): The player backlash to Trump"s calls for sports leagues to fire or suspend players who kneel during the National Anthem is expanding as superstar players like Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers have posted messages of solidarity with protesters on social media.







Also, the Pittsburgh Steelers have announced that they will remain in the locker room during the Anthem during a 1 p.m. ET game against the Chicago Bears in Chicago.


Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin made the announcement during an interview with CBS.





"For us as a football team it"s about us remaining solid. We"re not going to be divided by anything said by anyone. I told the players if you feel the need to do anything I will be supportive of that, as Americans you have that right, but whatever we do, we"re going to do 100% we"re going to do together...we"re not going to play politics with football players or football coaches. We"re not participating in the anthem today.  We"re not going to let divisive times or divisive individuals affect our agenda. We"re not participating in the anthem..to remove ourselves from this circumstance...because people shouldn"t have to choose."


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Update (11:30 am ET): During an appearance on ESPN"s "NFL Sunday Countdown", a football show that this week was coopted by politics, former Buffalo Bills and New York Jets head coach Rex Ryan admitted that he was "pissed off" about President Donald Trump referring to pro athletes who don"t stand for the pledge as "sons of bitches" and urging fans to boycott the league, or at least walk out of stadiums when they see players protesting.





“I’m pissed off, I’ll be honest with you,” Ryan said on ESPN’s “Sunday NFL Countdown.” “I supported Donald Trump. When he asked me to introduce him at a rally in Buffalo, I did that. But I’m reading these comments and it’s appalling to me and I’m sure it’s appalling to any citizen in our country.”



“Calling our players SOBs and all that kind of stuff? That’s not the men that I know,” Ryan, who"s  now an analyst, continued. “The men I know in the locker room, I’m proud of, I’m proud to be associated with those people.”



As the Hill notes, Ryan introduced Trump at a rally in Buffalo during the 2016 election and endorsed him for president.





Earlier, Patriots owner Robert Kraft, who also supported Trump during the campaign, said he was "deeply disappointed" in the president.


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Update (10:35 ET): Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin has become the first senior Trump administration official to publicly address Trump"s feud with the NFL and NBA - the president called for fans to boycott the NFL unless owners fire or discipline players who kneel during the National Anthem - saying the issue wasn"t about free speech and that players have first amendment rights when they"re off the field.


"The NFL has all different types of rules ... it"s not about free speech. They can do free speech on their own time," Treasury Secretary Mnuchin said Sunday on ABC"s "This Week."


Mnuchin, of course, offered his thoughts about what Trump “was really trying to say” when he lashed out at sports teams. Trying to interpret or clarify Trump’s remarks to make them seem less wild/offensive/inarticulate has become common practice among members of the Trump administration. “I think what the president is saying is that owners should have a rule that players should stand and respect the national anthem” likening it to a rule about not placing stickers on helmets.





Marc Short, the president’s legislative director, has also backed his boss, telling "Meet the Press" that a double standard for players who chose to voice their views on the field, and that the president was speaking for the majority of Americans on what sort of expression was appropriate. Short compared a crackdown on protests to the ban on high school football coaches leading players in prayer before games.


“There are high school coaches across America today who are punished for leading their players in prayer, and yet, when an N.F.L. player takes a knee, somehow that player is presumed to be a martyr for a social cause,” Mr. Short said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “The president is standing with the vast majority of Americans who believe that our flag should be respected.”



* * *


Update (10:20 am ET): It"s 10:30 ET am on a Sunday morning, and already there have been several notable developments in President Trump"s feud with professional sports teams who tolerate players who kneel during the National Anthem. During the first NFL game since the feud started to escalate on Saturday, at least a dozen players on the Jacksonville Jaguars took a knee during the National Anthem at a game in London against the Baltimore Ravens, as Sports Illustrated reports.


Players from both teams stood during the playing of "God Save the Queen", though players linked arms during the song. Jaguars owner Shad Khan linked arms with Jaguars tight end linebacker Telvin Smith. Khan, who like Kraft also donated to the Trump campaign, said he would not be issuing a statement about the feud, and referred reporters to a league statement.







Meanwhile, last night, Oakland Athletics catcher Bruce Maxwell became the first Major League Baseball player to take a knee, as Bleacher Report noted.


"The Oakland A"s pride ourselves on being inclusive," the team said in a statement. "We respect and support all of our players" constitutional rights and freedom of expression."


Manager Bob Melvin told Bleacher Report that Maxwell informed the team before the game that he intended to kneel. Melvin added that Maxwell had deeply considered whether to kneel or not. Maxwell later issued a statement on twitter where he said he didn"t mean to disrespect the military by kneeling. "It"s not disrespectful to our constitution. It"s not to disrespect our country. My hand was over my heart because I love this country. I"ve had plenty of family members, including my father, that have bled for this country."





MLB also released a statement:





"Major League Baseball has a longstanding tradition of honoring our nation prior to the start of our games. We also respect that each of our players is an individual with his own background, perspectives and opinions. We believe that our game will continue to bring our fans, their communities and our players together."



We imagine we"ll see more gestures like this during NFL games set in the US later today.


* * *


Trump"s bizarre, concurrent fight with the NBA and NFL, in which he slammed players who kneel during the US anthem and also rescinded an invitation to Warriors" star Stephen Curry, escalated on Sunday morning when Trump blasted a couple of tweets first saying that "If NFL fans refuse to go to games until players stop disrespecting our Flag & Country, you will see change take place fast. Fire or suspend!" The president added that "NFL attendance and ratings are WAY DOWN. Boring games yes, but many stay away because they love our country. League should back U.S."




This led to one of Trump"s closest allies, New England Patriots Chariman and CEO Robert Kraft, issuing a statement shortly thereafter in which he slammed Trump"s Friday comments.


The Patriots owner, who donated $1 million to Trump"s inauguration committee and gave Trump a custom Super Bowl ring, issued a strongly worded rebuke to the president Sunday morning in the wake of Trump"s criticism of the NFL and its players.


"I am deeply disappointed by the tone of the comments made by the President on Friday," Kraft wrote. "I am proud to be associated with so many players who make such tremendous contributions in positively impacting our communities. Their efforts, both on and off the field, help bring people together and make our community stronger.


"There is no greater unifier in this country than sports, and unfortunately, nothing more divisive than politics. I think our political leaders could learn a lot from the lessons of teamwork and the importance of working together toward a common goal. Our players are intelligent, thoughtful and care deeply about our community and I support their right to peacefully affect social change and raise awareness in a manner that they feel is most impactful.”


Separately, Patriots tackle Nate Solder tweeted earlier on Sunday that his team is united despite any differences of opinion among players about the protests.



Previously on Saturday, several NFL owners and commissioner Roger Goodell had already issued statements Saturday after Trump"s feud with players who have taken a knee in protest during the national anthem. The president criticized those protests at a rally Friday in Alabama and repeated them on Twitter both Saturday and Sunday morning.


stand or kneel, that"s a free choice, you won"t see any division in this locker room over that, we respect each other too much.


— Nate Solder (@soldernate) September 24, 2017


Widespread player action is expected before Sunday"s games.


As the New York Times pointe dout, the feud has struck a chord with many of Trump’s core supporters, some of whom applauded him on social media for his stance. But he has also been criticized by prominent athletes like LeBron James. Many NFL franchise owners and coaches are donors or friends of the president.


Below is the full statement from Patriots Chairman & CEO Robert Kraft:





"I am deeply disappointed by the tone of the comments made by the President on Friday. I am proud to be associated with so many plagers who make such tremendous contributions in positively impacting our communities. Their efforts, both on and off the field, help bring people together and make our community stronger. There is no greater unifier in this country than sports, and unfortunately, nothing more divisive than politics. I think our political leaders could learn a lot from the lessons of  teamwork and the importance of working together toward a common goal. Our players are intelligent, thoughtful and  care deeply about our community and I support their right to peacefully affect social change and raise awareness in a manner that they feel is most impactful."



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Saturday, September 23, 2017

NFL Chief Lashes Out At "Divisive, Disrespectful" Trump Over "Son Of A Bitch" Comment

Update: Trump"s comments have elicited some responses from NFL players also...


DeMaurice Smith, head of the NFL Players Association



Lesean McCoy of the Buffalo Bills



Eric Ebron of the Detroit Lions



Chris Conley of the Kansas City Chiefs



George Iloka of the Cincinnati Bengals



Richard Sherman of the Seattle Seahawks




*  *  *


As we detailed earlier, after warming up the Alabama crowd Friday night with a recitation of Trump’s Greatest hits (attacks on Hillary Clinton, intransigent Republicans in Congress and, of course, the president’s love of Roll Tide football), Trump abruptly went off on a tangent about the NFL and the growing number of players who are following former San Francisco 49ers back-up QB Colin Kaepernick in kneeling during the National Anthem, purportedly to protest racial injustice in the US.



In remarks that predictably provoked a chorus of outrage in the left wing media Saturday, Trump said that NFL owners should fire players like Kaepernick - whom the president implied was a "son of a b***h" for “disrespecting our heritage” by refusing to stand for the anthem – who engage in gametime protests, adding that any owner who did so would become “the most popular person in the country – at least for a week.” He then asked his supporters to leave the stadium if they see players protesting during games, adding that walkouts would force NFL franchise owners to confront the protests.





"When people like yourselves turn on television and you see those people taking the knee when they are playing our great national anthem – the only thing you could do better is if you see it, even if it"s one player, leave the stadium," Trump said. "I guarantee things will stop."



"I"d love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, "Get that son of a bitch off the field right now. He"s fired."




Of course, even the suggestion that the league engage in the active suppression of speech (as if it isn’t doing that already) was enough to provoke an outraged response from Commissioner Roger Goodell.



In a statement issued Saturday morning, Goodell said Trump’s “divisive” comments “demonstrate an unfortunate lack of respect for the NFL.”





“The NFL and our players are at our best when we help create a sense of unity in our country and our culture.  There is no better example than the amazing response from our clubs and players to the terrible natural disasters we"ve experienced over the last month. 



Divisive comments like these demonstrate an unfortunate lack of respect for the NFL, our great game and all of our players, and a failure to understand the overwhelming force for good our clubs and players represent in our communities.”



Unfortunately for Goodell, Trump has a point about the popularity (or rather, unpopularity) of political protests at sporting events, and their impact on the NFL’s ratings.


As Free Market Shooter pointed out in a Saturday post, ratings truly are down across the NFL, and surveys have suggested that the drop is tied to controversial protests, which have alienated many of the white, working-class fans that comprise the league’s fan base.


Though Colin Kaepernick is still unsigned by any NFL team, other players are continuing the “protest” trend that he started. However, since Kaepernick first refused to stand for the anthem last year, attendance at the team’s games, and its ratings, have declined.



A recent J.D. Power survey shows that the national anthem protests are directly to blame for declining ratings.


The group surveyed 9,200 fans (a sample of 1,000 is usually used in political polling), and 26% of them said they had turned the games off due to the national protests alone.


As Free Market Shooter concludes, at the end of the day, the NFL is facing a number of headwinds that have led to a decline in ratings.  High prices of the game itself, both for the home consumer and the fans in stadium seats, are certainly what gets the ball rolling on fans choosing to tuning out.  Combine that with questions on the quality of the game, accessibility, and a litany of other factors not mentioned here (including the commissioner’s punishments of players and concussion fears), and it seems the political antics of some players is just one of many aspects that has led to the NFL’s sharp ratings drop.


However, when a Trump-voting US military veteran is sitting at home, pissed off about how his team is 0-2, angry that his cable bill is eating into his disability payments, upset that the game “isn’t what it used to be,” and he turns on the game just before kickoff to see a player doing this while the National Anthem is being sung…



...it just might be the straw that breaks this guy’s back and gets him to tune out of this week’s game.  Given the NFL’s current predicament regarding viewership, political antics from players are the last thing the league needs right now. 


*  *  *


For anyone who has been following the Kaepernick saga, the hypocrisy in Goodell’s statement should be strikingly obvious. NFL owners have, in effect, already acquiesced to Trump’s demands that they fire protesting players: case in point, Kaepernick has been blackballed from the league after opting out of his contract with the 49ers back in March.


But then again, hypocrisy is nothing new to the NFL.
 

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