The NFL’s Baffling Ability To Always Make Things Worse
So lets talk about the only thing that really mattered to NFL fans this past week.
They instituted a new policy for the national anthem. You can stay in the locker room, but if you come out on the field you have to stand (and not demonstrate in any way) during the anthem or there will be a fine.
I’m not going to talk at length about my opinion on the anthem protests. If you are a longtime reader, you already know what side I’m on. There are people out there far more equipped to talk about this situation, the implications, the politics, the problems, than a guy who draws football puns and butts for the internet. If you’re not a longtime reader here’s the TL/DR: I think this country was founded on the right to protest and forced patriotism is creepy, and far too many people have co-opted the narrative of the protest into being about the flag and the military so they can avoid talking about the actual reason and purpose of the protest: racial inequality. That’s what side I fall on, but this post isn’t really about that. This is about the NFL’s amazing ability to be stupid.
It doesn’t really matter on what side of the anthem argument you stand on, because this new policy has accomplished absolutely nothing but make everything worse for the NFL. It is positively astounding to me how the NFL continues to make everything worse for itself over and over and over again. I’ve had a running theme of criticizing the league itself, the owners, and the commissioner on The Draw Play. It’s a favorite subject of mine. This latest thing is honestly kind of hilarious to me. To me it was never really interesting what side of the anthem arguments the NFL was going to come down on, because the answer was always obvious: the side of the group that gives them lots and lots of money. The NFL doesn’t give a fuck about my opinion on the anthem, or yours. They care about the sweet, sweet endorsement dollars they get from the department of defense. The protests, thanks to the narrative co-opting, have become about the military, and now the protests are viewed as unpatriotic. This protesting therefore cannot be tolerated when the person putting mega money in your pocket is the fucking military. The NFL is in a deep committed relationship with the military propaganda machine. Hey look, another game with jets flying over it! I could barely see the jets from under my sweet team camo hat. Be all you can be.
It’s amazing how badly the NFL still managed to fuck it up, again. Roger Goodell’s tenure as commissioner, especially over the past 5-10 years, have been scandal after scandal made so much worse by taking obvious wrong moves. Ray Rice getting a measly 2 game suspension for a horrible shocking moment, only to commit double jeopardy and bungle the suspension even more when the full video came out. The NFL going overboard in effort to make an example out of a pathetically small offense by a star QB in order to look TOUGH. The laughable attempts to handle the CTE thing. Baffling drug policies. Responding to criticisms of the rulebook by making the rules more complicated and harder to call. If the NFL has made any correct decisions in the past decade, it’s only after they first made it worse.
The NFL used to be really damn good at sweeping this stuff under the rug, out of sight. They used to be very good at promptly and swiftly dealing with scandals and issues effectively and smoothly. Now they are the poster child for doing it wrong and this is just the latest example of making the choice that is just going to punch them in the dick even more.
The NFL, more than anything, wants this anthem thing to just go away. All they did was ensure that it’s just going to get worse.
This policy isn’t going to change the minds of the people protesting. This isn’t changing anyone’s mind. So the people who are protesting will continue to protest. They will continue to talk to the press. They will continue to get coverage. The coverage they were already getting will now be amplified, because there are higher stakes involved and this new policy wrinkle has been added. Their opinions on this policy will now be stories. Reporters are going to go to games and take roll call on teams, see who is still in the locker room. The protest may not be visible on screen, but we are still gonna know who is protesting, so we are still gonna hear about it. This doesn’t really hide the protests like the NFL thinks it will.
On top of that, there will be players who can afford a fine who will still come out and demonstrate, now deliberately breaking a rule that wasn’t there before, which will make those players even bigger stories, even more of a hot-button issue. The protests were fading in coverage by the end of last season. We already knew who was kneeling and who felt what. It was becoming background noise, slowly but surely. This has given the protests new life, new vigor, and the press on both sides is going to have a field day talking about it once more. How each and every team deals with the protests will be loud stories too. Which owners are supportive of which sides will become a thing. We’ve already seen some dissent from certain high ups like Jed York and the Jets chairman Christopher Johnson. Before this the NFL felt like a unified monolith looming in the distance behind the issue. Now we’ll be able to see lots more little exposed angles for EVEN MORE PRESS! Yay!
On top of that, the NFL things worse in other ways! They didn’t consult the NFLPA about this decision whatsoever, which means they may have violated player rights! Good job, NFL, now you have a labor issue too! The NFLPA is kind of a powerless joke, and whether or not the players first amendment rights have been violated is questionable (Since the NFL is a private entity), but they still made an issue where there was none! Now there’s going to be a fight, which means more coverage! More press! More talking about the thing the NFL just wants to go away. Good job, idiots.
This isn’t a win for any side, even if you agree that the players should “respect the anthem”. All this policy does is amplify and reinvigorate the arguments . The protests were fading. People were getting bored and tired of hearing about them. Kaep has been out of the league for over a year and is very clearly never seeing a football field again, so the biggest figurehead of the entire thing wasn’t even as much of a factor in the discussion anymore. The protests were becoming routine, even if you supported them, because nothing was coming from it but more and more repetitive discussions of points already made. The NFL had an extremely obvious solution to their “anthem problem”. Ignore it. Do nothing publicly. At the very minimum, keep the entire team in the locker room. Out of sight, things fade from coverage quickly. We were probably a season from the protests just kinda fading away to background noise.
Instead the league hilariously farted in their own faces.
Again.
“Instead the league hilariously farted in their own faces.”
Like this? http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/803/206/675.gif
Ah, good old Spore and the horrifying creations it pulls out of the darkest corners of gamers’ imaginations.
“Good job, idiots.”
About sums the NFL up. I had forgotten about the protests entirely (even though I generally support them) until this week when the league did this Stupid Thing and our president started talking about deporting any players who kneel for the anthem. Sigh.
League mandated patriotism also debases the entire act of standing for the anthem. Standing because you choose to is a display pride and patriotism. Standing for fear of retaliation is something else altogether.
I think that fining a player for protesting is 100% justified. It’s why I only watched about 5 games last year
You didn’t watch football because some players took a knee? What about the year before that? Or did you only take notice when Trump got upset? This is an honest question, as this had been happening already, but no one really cared until the President started tweeting about it.
Trump’s opinion means nothing to me. I don’t like how they’re going about the whole protesting thing. I understand why they are doing it. I support why they are doing it. I don’t like how they are doing it. Protest on YOUR TIME AND DIME, not someone else’s. It has affected my opinion of the credibility of the game. Players for years have seemed like divas. This only re-enforces that image. Again, I absolutely agree with their cause. I just think they are taking a bad approach. Most people have made this a flag issue when it isn’t. But at its core, I find it ironic that players in uniform are protesting the wrong behavior of other people who are in uniform. You can’t tell me that doesn’t look at least a little hypocritical.
Gonna have to agree with Sparta and Max here. I don’t watch sports for their political nonsense. I watch them to get away from it actually. Which I assume a lot of people do. Also, anyone a little bit irritated that the maze is unsolvable?
Why not simply not force players to show fealty to the nation before a sporting event? It’s mindless nationalism that caused the issue, not the protest against it.
Or are you required to stand for a Pledge of Allegiance every morning at work, just like China?
It would only be hypocritical if the players had any power over the lives of others (and don’t get cute about their impact on your emotions). Not all uniforms are the same, and I feel vaguely ridiculous for even having to type that.
As for not liking where they do it – if you protest when there’s no attention on you, it doesn’t do any good. I, for example, had no idea that Max from the internet supports Black Lives Matter and similar social justice causes. But I DO know how many football players feel about it. And that’s becaaaaauuusse. . .?
The difference between me and them is that get paid millions of dollars and have name recognition in their favor. Guys in the NFL do all kinds of stuff outside the league all the time without bringing the game into it or using their soapbox as a platform to do so. JJ Watt is a great example of that. Even Colin Kaepernick is active outside the game. People don’t hear as much about him unless its football related it seems (which is unfortunate). The thing is, when the players are in uniform, they are “on the job”. As an owner, I would want them to be respectful as an employee. I would support their beliefs, encourage them and possibly even find ways to help them raise awareness. But I would expect them, when in uniform, to do the job they signed up to do. Plain and simple.
And as another point, as a young kid growing up, I idolized football players. I looked up to them and fawned over them and thought they could do no wrong. I believed everything they said. So yes, the players do have some form of influence over the lives of some people. Call it stupid if you want. But I would say then that you must not be a true fan of the game.
Protesting away from view wrecks the entire purpose of protesting. I’d watch dudes taking a knee all day over hearing about yet another cop getting caught bullying/ beating/ killing an unarmed black man and just getting a paid suspension as punishment. They also are sick of seeing it. I have a hard time having sympathy for people having to watch people do something during what was the bathroom break portion of the broadcast up until a few years ago over having sympathy for the cause they are protesting for.
Then why do we even bother with the whole ‘Dog and Pony’ show of the acts of ‘patriotism?’ Just get rid of the entire thing and then joe sixpack won’t have to worry about being offended.
Because the military paid the NFL millions of dollars to be allowed to do jingoistic crap before games
sad part, at least to me, is I saw a headline this morning about a poll that says the majority of Americans LIKE the policy!
Yeah, but how big is that poll, and what are the demographics? I’m always wary of those stats. Turns out “majority” ends up being of 7000 people, all called on landlines.
I honestly don’t hate it. No one is being forced to stand for the Anthem and the people who stay in the locker room will definitely be asked in postgame interviews or have their faces plastered on ESPN, so they can tell their views.
Although a better decision is that no one comes out until after the Anthem
But what if someone wants to come out like the Steelers lineman Villanueva did in week 3?
Both polls release have massive inherent biases. Rather than remain tone-neutral, the questions implied that the protests were un-American.
The maze is unsolvable on purpose, right?
Welcome to the NFL, where we don’t know how to care about a damn thing anyone says about us, and we don’t care about the previous statement either.
Here’s the issue that I have with this whole debate. For a minute think about this. What if the person who took a knee was Tom Brady or JJ Watt and when asked about why they were taking a knee they said that they were doing so to bring awareness to Veterans who need better VA benefits when they come from war. In my opinion no one would be upset and be saying that they are disrespecting the military or the flag but because the protesters are black and protesting against racial injustice by police it is disrespectful. It just goes to show how racist our country still is even at the top of our government
There is a lot of truth in what you said. And honestly, it makes me very sad. Why can’t everyone just treat everyone better…
Except that they aren’t protesting against racial injustice. They are protesting against fake statistics used to justify cop-hating and America hating.
Fact: The vast majority of black people murdered are killed by other black people
Fact: There are black people that are murdered by white people in this country. But each and every year, that number is smaller than the number of white people murdered by black people.
Question: If blacks dying at the hands of white is a symptom of racial injustice against blacks, then how come MORE whites dying at the hands of blacks isn’t a symptom of racial injustice BY blacks? (don’t fret – not expecting an answer).
Fact: The police respond with violence to those who commit violent crimes – this is true across all races. Blacks actually encounter police violence at a slightly lower rate than the percentage of violent crime committed by them.
There are REAL problems that need to be addressed in the black community. But by focusing on made-up fake racial stats, we’ll never get to solving those problems. Which is exactly how those who traffic in racial unrest want it to be.
Oops, I buried the lede:
Blacks do encounter a violent reaction from the police at a much higher rate than their percentage of the population. (this is the fake stats being used – it’s true, but it’s being misapplied)
The reason that blacks encounter police violence is that, while they are only 13% of the population, blacks commit roughly 45% of the violent crime.
When you compare which races commit violent crime at which percentage, and compare it to encountering police violence, you see that it is very close for EVERY race.
In other words, in general, police act violently toward people who commit violent crime, regardless of race.
It just so happens that black commit FAR more than their share of violent crime (when are NFL athletes going to kneel to reduce black violence? – most of which occurs against other blacks)
Woof woof!
You’re a shat-stirring liar and a racist.
You didn’t address what I said at all. All you are saying is that you disagree with the purpose of their protest, not if you would feel differently if the taking a knee during the anthem was to protest injustice against veterans who fought for our country or if they took a knee to remember fallen soldiers or to bring awareness to another cause. I am merely saying that their would not be an uproar of people saying they are disrespecting the military if everyone agreed with their cause to take a knee. Which brings us to the First Amendment and it seems that people are using the whole disrespecting America argument only because they don’t agree with their cause for protest which is the most unamerican thing anyone can do. To demonize someone as unamerican because you don’t agree with their point of view.
Ahhh yes, the classic “NUH UH, YOU DONT DECIDE WHAT YOUR PROTESTING, I DECIDE WHAT YOUR PROTESTING USING FACTS FROM YHE GUY WHO SELLS TACTICAL BATH TUBS!!!” It must be stressful feeling responsible enough for the world you have to dictate people’s thoughts to them.
Artie I are you against what I said or against the response from Andy?
I would have just had all the players stay in the locker room (if I had my druthers, I’d remove the anthem entirely). No, this doesn’t violate the 1st amendment, but the principles of the 1st can still be argued. The hypocrisy of demanding respect for something that symbolizes a loathing for such demands is something that can’t be ignored. “We will mandate that you respect our flag because we’re a free country!” Oh yeah. That makes perfect sense. Ugh.
The principles for the 1st can not be argued in this case. The 1st Amendment applies to govt, not private enterprise.
Any NFL player is free to stand, sit, talk on their cell phone, give the finger, make out with his girl, or whatever, any time the national anthem is playing, EXCEPT if his employer has a policy against doing those sorts of things while in their employ.
Just like I have the right to never clean any toilet that I don’t want to ever, EXCEPT if my employer is paying me to clean toilets.
If we applied the 1st Amendment standard to everyone in the country the way some are trying to apply it here, then virtually every boss in the country is violating every single employee’s rights.
But what the NFL is doing is basically akin to forced patriotism. It’s disgusting.
No. It’s not forced patriotism. What it is is covering it’s PR ass. Last year the kneeling and stupidity over it caused lots of lost revenue for the NFL. NFL did studies, found that the fans who paid lots of money for crappy seats really didn’t enjoy paying lots of money for really crappy seats to watch asshats who are paid huge, and in some respects obscene, amounts of money to play sportsball. The fans don’t care if sportsball player #435-A is a biochemist who is working on the next new anti-cancer drug, they care if said player can do what he’s being paid huge, if not obscene, amounts of money to do.
That’s what this is about. Protecting the bottom line. Nothing to do with forced patriotism. They are just saying, no matter what the player feels, that if he is on the field at the time of the anthem that he not do anything to affect the bottom line, the Profit. That’s it.
Quit trying to read into this something that isn’t there.
When I buy groceries, I don’t want to be lectured about the plight of whatever stupid thing in wherever stupid country my food comes from. I want to buy groceries. That’s it. If I want news, I’ll look at a damned news cast, or newspaper or sumdude’s website or dorky webcomic. I don’t go to dorky webcomic’s website for food.
It’s all about the money, and covering Goodall’s rather obscene salary. That’s it.
Sometimes a cigar is just a frigin cigar.
Ahhhhhhhhhhh
When I was in grade school, I was introduced to the idea of not participating in the pledge of allegiance. A number of kids were Jehova’s Witnesses and remained seated during the pledge. When kids asked about why they were sitting, our teacher talked about different reasons why people wouldn’t say the pledge of allegiance. Some religions are barred from making oaths. Other groups see the pledge as idolatry. Still others just didn’t like the idea of enforced displays of patriotism. We all realized that it was possible for many different people to do many different things for many different justifiable reasons and we should respect people’s choices.
I thought I’d share a positive story instead of bemoan the NFL’s stupidity.
Dave I can’t find a route to the end of the maze it’s so confusing
You’re not searching hard enough.
I miss Tags.
Here’s freedom of thought for you. If you think you should protest police brutality and racial profiling by kneeling during the anthem is a good idea, by all means, do so. It’s a free country. If you find said protests disrespectful and refuse to support a league that endorses it, by all means, do so. It’s a free country. If you, as an employer, decide that these protests by your employees while they are on the clock is harming your business and you do not want them happening on company time, guess what? You are also free to do so. It’s a free country for you too.
Spot on.
Bingo.
And as a fellow consumer of that employer’s product, we too can voice our opinions of the policies they put in to place for their employees. Let’s also not forget that the players will absolutely have something to say about this and all the other grievances they have against Godell and the league come the end of the 2020 season.
I am in the weird position as a Boston fan right now. I have been raised to view with mixture of disdain, envy, and loathing all New York teams yet out of this entire shit show it is the New York Jets who have handled it the best with their owner just saying fuck the fines and that he will pay them.
It always baffles me that an apolitical league like the NFL somehow managed to piss off both sides.
With this it was a given. Maybe they should have just waited longer. With this no press is good press
I want to know when kneeling for the anthem became disrespectful to the military. The first thing I learned when I went to my first game was to kneel out of respect when a player was injured. I understood kneeling as a sign of respect for the fallen and injured. I want to know why that wouldn’t still apply to the flag.
I also want to know that if a player wanted to kneel to honor the fallen of a tragedy such as the Santa Fe High School shooting, would there be as much uproar.
You know what stop this is no private schools everyone gets assigned and everyone has a chance
Would never happen but a thought
#SchoolChoiceEqualsBestChoice
#BreakUpTheTeachersUnions
Lol – every study out there basically shows that as long as the parents are involved in the child’s school work, where they go to school doesn’t matter all that much.
As an Air Force veteran… this is so dumb. The people who are always crying about PC culture (rightfully so) are now crying about how un PC kneeling for the anthem is. And they don’t even realize they’re doing it. Both sides need to grow a pair and suck it up.
Yeah, I’m generally split on this issue.
On one hand I don’t care for players stuffing politics in where it doesn’t belong but on the other hand, the whole thing have gotten blown up that in a way the protesting players got what they wanted. Plus, in every football related articles, often you find comments section post going along the lines of how they’re boycotting the game…in every single football related articles with comments sections.
I mean good for them but at the same time, who the fuck cares? Not to mention by posting in the comments section of a football article, it’s not exactly boycotting is it?
As someone who has stopped watching and purchasing the NFL, these penalties and fines don’t go far enough . For someone like Dave who is in favor of the protests, they go too far. Those who don’t care are getting pissed off over discussion on the issue, likely avoiding any coverage surrounding the NFL other than the games themselves. Once again, the NFL dun fucked up.
Even though we dislike rival teams, football fans are a brotherhood. This issue has been a divisive one that has almost ruined the fun of the game sadly. There is no easy fix for this. In fact, I’ll go one step further. There is no fix for this at all. What has been done cannot be undone. The protesting, the hurt feelings (justified or unjustified), what integrity the game still had. Football has become just another divisive issue. I mean, look at our comments section. We’re all arguing our opinions like they matter more than the next persons. And don’t blame anyone. It’s not the players faults, or the police, or anyone regardless of their skin color. This is just why we can’t have nice things 🙁
Yeah, politics is an ugly thing.
shouldn’t be that way though because politics is for better or worse how actual shit gets done
politics is not de facto a bad thing but we sure as hell are good at ruining it
The sad thing was it was real obvious how to handle this: Don’t take the DoD money anymore, don’t force teams to do the Anthem. Those who want to will, and then the problem goes to between player and team. But they just can’t resist that (really, overall, pretty small) chunk of change.
They’ve lost so much money from the right-wingers who never want to give a dollar because scary black man hurt their fee-fees, left-wingers who see fascism and everyone else who just doesn’t want culture war in their game.
Honestly, I don’t give a shit, let’s just get back to football
Still better than NBA right now, that’s for certain.
WWNBAE
Dat foul on the guy LeBron backed into, how can anyone not be suspicious? I didn’t even want to believe this either.
It cracks me up when people care more about the symbol than what it symbolises.
i can’t love this comment enough
What’s the symbology there?
Oh no look what you’ve done, now everyone is sharing their opinions on a tight issue and fighting noooooo
While the operative issue is the right of the players to protest the anthem, the fact that the league is creating an oppressive policy is not material to the problem with the policy. The problem the league is facing is that it has no right to materially alter the CBA without consent from the union. What the policy itself is is incidental to that discussion.
Amazingly enough, if they just ignored what they were doing it would all have gone away sooner. 2023 and not a protest or kneel insight for the past year or two.