N.F.L. Teams Will Be Fined if Players Kneel During National Anthem

Why not just leave all the players in the locker room, play the anthem, announce the teams and do the run outs. This is how it was handled before 9/11 and how it’s handled in college football. Fans don’t complain because the college athletes aren’t on the field.

Why do the players need to stand out there in the first place? They rarely aired it live on tv, before the kneeling started.

 

I shouldn't have read the ESPN article comments. What was I thinking?! If I never had to read or hear the words "liberal" or "conservative" again I'd live a happier life.

This particular issue always calls me back to how Trump ran down the quality of life for African Americans during the election, in a way that was incredibly offensive, and yet did call out the systematic neglect of inner city areas. Of course, his entire platform, and presidency has only made things worse through urban infrastructure cancellations, reduced/redistributed school funding, election/voting rules, healthcare rollbacks, etc. not to mention the incredibly divisive brand of politics he's wielding. To then further politicize and criticize that very population protesting against the things he tried to use himself (in vain) to steal black votes to win the election just angers me even more.

 

Completely agree, still think this whole thing is ridiculous to begin with...

 

The NFL will never do anything that will cost them a buck.

 

Symbols have power. To respect that power and those symbols is to treat them seriously. Kaepernick's kneeling is an infinitely more respectful gesture towards the flag and anthem than any mandated, performative standing, because it is directly acknowledging the power in those symbols and how they fail hundreds of millions of Americans every single day. The NFL has sharted all over every step of this process, emptily saying how good the protests have been for conveying the message the players were sending while imposing restrictions on the player's ability to protest. All to mandate a dystopian performance of patriotism to appease racist white people. These restrictions on freedom of speech and expression are at least partially because the President of the United States and Vice President, among others in government, have pressured the league to enforce penalties for dissenting players exercising their rights as Americans. It's a first amendment crisis that right wing free speech warriors celebrate because they don't care about being hypocrites, and no one holds them accountable. This is an ugly chapter in American history that represents so much of what has always been ugly about the United States, and was made more aggressively and loudly ugly by a Trump administration. It's all so absurd and maddening.

Colin Kaepernick is a hero.

 

Who decided that the national anthem needed to be played before sports events? We might as well say the pledge of allegiance before movies and sing God Bless America at concerts too.

 

Funny to see people shout "Don't mix sports and politics". First off, if athletes aren't allowed to talk about politics on the field, in a press conference or on social media, then I guess that means the rest of us who aren't politicians can't talk about them either. And then we're just left with politicians talking about issues...and needless to say, that doesn't sound like freedom to me.

 

World War 2. And now sporting events are basically military hand-jobs and pretty gross nationalism.

 

Especially the NFL and NASCAR.

 

its a fine line because, honoring a war hero on the field before the game or during a timeout is something meaningful

 

I find this phrase to be an oxymoron in 2018. War's bad and our military killing people abroad is bad.

Related: The Good War on Terror · Chris Hayes

 

of course war is bad, no debating that, but do you stand up and clap when they are shown on the jumbotron?

 

I completely get that NFL team owners are bigoted morons but I still don't get how they can be this deaf to...everything.

The list of things wrong with this is so long.

 

Oregon doesn't have an NFL team and I've never gone to a game. However, I do go get more beer and chips like everyone else if I happen to be watching it on TV.

 

The owners would essentially be admitting defeat then.

 

How dare they communicate their distaste with our state's current sociology with a non-verbal, non-violent gesture?

Poor Rosa Parks is rolling over in her grave right now. Wonder what thoughts are running through Colin Kaepernick's head tonight.

 

Idiocy. I guess since my team lost to my least favorite team in the superbowl, nows a good time to boycott.

 

I'm curious how the Eagles end up being your least favorite team, if you're a Patriots fan? Different divisions, not much history between them.

 

As a pats fan, the only team I should really hate is Miami. But I live in eastern PA, and I hate the whole Philly sports mentality. Eagles fans are the absolute worst.

 

The only good thing in the nfl in years is the Pats losing the Super Bowl. The rest has been garbage.

 

Not sure how much this has to do with the standing for the anthem itself, but the Department of Defense has been paying organization for nods to the military since like '09.

NFL teams reportedly received tax dollars to hold military tributes

 

Bird Gang doing the real God's Work.

 

In all seriousness though, I agree wholeheartedly with Malcolm Jenkins' statement on this decision.

 

I've never been a big fan of American football anyway. This also causes a physical divide between the players who go out onto the field and the ones who stay in the locker room. That's not good for a team.

But FIFA is more corrupt than the NFL so I don't have much room to talk.