WASHINGTON — NFL Week 3 was an exciting and compelling week of football between the white lines, but there’s no denying this week was defined more by what happened on the sidelines.
Despite featuring some thrilling comebacks, amazing individual performances, and multiple upsets (if you’re still alive in your survivor pool, you should play the lottery with that kind of luck), the story of Week 3 was the widespread demonstrations by NFL players during the national anthem, a firm and unequivocal response to President Donald Trump’s Friday night remarks.
I won’t delve into Trump’s words here. My stance on that should be both obvious and understood. I’ve already talked ad nauseum about NFL player resistance during the national anthem (last year…and again two weeks ago) and tried to drive home the point that the wrongheaded notion that players are protesting the flag/military is the same as thinking that Rosa Parks was protesting public transportation when she famously refused to give up her seat on that Alabama bus in 1955.
(In fact, if you’re really concerned about preserving the integrity of the flag, this thread will make it abundantly clear that this country has miserably failed in that department for decades.)
I will say that I was both heartened and disappointed in what I saw from the players, coaches and owners that banded together in unity and locked arms to stand against the harmful rhetoric that’s plagued the country for over a year.
On the one hand, I’m glad the league stood together against an unfair attack on the integrity of their product. My gripes against the NFL are many, but the league allowing player expression and taking steps to ensure their safety on and off the field are not among them (if anything, they need to be better on both fronts).
However, I had three issues with what I saw. First and foremost, it was a salacious distraction from the original and important message this resistance seeks to bring to light (which my friend and colleague Noah Frank brilliantly describes here.)
Secondly, owners like Jacksonville’s Shahid Khan and Washington’s Dan Snyder sent a mixed message by seemingly standing up to the same man to whose presidential inauguration they each pledged $1 million. How can you pose as part of the solution when you helped put in place the man these players feel is the embodiment of the issues they seek to change? At best, it’s a contradiction. At worst, well…
And not one let Kaepernick even try out. So, this is the performance art of containment. They've discovered no commitment to the cause… https://t.co/io0HDndtiu
— Full Dissident (@hbryant42) September 24, 2017
Third, I felt like the three teams that didn’t take the field at all for the anthem (Pittsburgh, Tennessee and Seattle) were actually opting to sit on the fence rather than make a statement one way or the other. Not that they have to, abstaining is their right. But these teams — specifically the Seahawks and Steelers, who are uniquely tied to this debate because of Michael Bennett’s status as the new voice of the movement among active players, and Pittsburgh’s liberal leadership (at least by NFL standards) — could have made a stronger statement by demonstrating their unity for all to see.
“We will not be divided on this,” Steelers coach Mike Tomlin said in a passionate postgame press conference. “We got a group of men in there that come from different socioeconomic backgrounds, races, creed, ethnicities and religions, and so forth. That’s football. That’s a lot of team sports, but because of our position, we get drug into bulls—, to be quite honest with you.
“Some have opinions. Some don’t. We wanted to protect those that don’t. We wanted to protect those that do.”
While I would normally applaud that approach, these are different times we live in. What we’re discussing here are social issues, not political ones. The fact that Trump is a political figure blurs those lines, but it doesn’t change that fact.
At a bare minimum, I expect a black coach in 2017 to support his players’ desire to demonstrate by allowing them to do so, especially when he’s got a stake in the reason for the resistance. Furthermore, it would have helped Pittsburgh avoid the clumsy misunderstanding surrounding Alejandro Villanueva.
Regardless, the events of Week 3 were a net win for the NFL and for the still-blackballed Colin Kaepernick. This movement is now worldwide, and the discussion seeps into more conversations with every passing day.
That said, it’s becoming obvious these national anthem demonstrations are only in their infancy. NFL players will continue to engage in them until there’s a meaningful conversation about things that are inherently uncomfortable to certain white people. What they need — what we need– is for white folks to listen, to acknowledge what we’ve said is valid, and help us fix it. Given the polarizing nature of that very reasonable set of circumstances, there’s still too large a segment of the population unable to handle that pow wow.
If nothing else, Sunday provided the positive optics that will facilitate that talk and hopefully help us arrive at a place where true unity and togetherness can live.
Here’s your updated NFL Week 3 Recap.
