Texans players who don't want to stand for the national anthem next year can choose to stay in the locker room while it's played, per the NFL's new anthem policy announced Wednesday.
NFL teams have a really easy solution to dealing with a new policy regarding player decorum during the national anthem, a policy that New York City mayor Bill De Blasio branded "just plain un-American" on national television Thursday morning and has incurred the wrath of everyone who has the slightest inkling of what the First Amendment means.
Before the 9-11 tragedy, NFL teams didn't come out of their locker rooms until after the Star Spangled Banner had been performed as a matter of protocol. There were the occasional rare exceptions, but that was the accepted policy.
That should again be the policy.
The only remotely satisfactory compromise element of the rule that came down from the owners Wednesday was that it gave players determined to protest social injustice the option to stay behind in the locker room rather incur fines for their teams. If everybody stays put, ensuring everyone's privacy and sparing fans and sanctimonious, vote-chasing politicians the need to cast judgment on the players' individual "political" views, the problem is solved.
Let 'em guess who's standing and who's kneeling, or raising their black-gloved fists in the air behind closed doors. Chances are, of course, nobody will be (so coaches can relax instead of fretting over fragile team chemistry with The Big Game looming) because that would be rather pointless.
McCLAIN: New anthem policy widens owner-player rift
The NFL, not unexpectedly, came across as so disingenuous, pandering to the President, who has now gone so far as to suggest protesting players (he called them "SOBs" last summer) should leave the country, while sanctimoniously blah-blah-blah-ing about how the policy is being implemented hand-in-glove with the ramping up efforts to address the needs of the underserved communities that such a high percentage of its most valuable employees have escaped from.
The league also said its players were falsely perceived as being unpatriotic. That is, in fact, a 100-percent correct statement. But, because it is, seeing the need to turn around and formally prohibit them from peacefully and legally expressing their displeasure at obvious injustices is the height of hypocrisy.
Claiming harmony in the ranks, the NFL said the vote was unanimous. It wasn't. San Francisco's Jed York, whose former quarterback Colin Kaepernick, launched the conversation by first sitting, then kneeling during 49ers games in 2016, abstained. York didn't really clarify his position, either, but presumably he disagreed with the decision to ban sideline activism. He never punished, or even spoke out publicly against, Kaepernick and teammate Eric Reid, another former and still unemployed 49er who continued kneeling during the 2017 season, from doing what they felt they needed to do.
Reid's younger brother, Justin, is a rookie Texan, the first of three third-round picks in the recent draft. Asked what he would tell his new boss, Bob McNair, or all the other owners who have declined to give Eric a shot, about his brother's core values and beliefs, Justin replied: "You should just hold a conversation with him. I won't speak for Eric. I'll let him deliver his own message, but if you held a conversation with him, then you'll really understand what he's standing for. I'd just like them to talk to him, to hear what he has to say."
Seems reasonable.
This mess is, to be sure, all about money. Always is. The NFL has never been healthier financially and is about to get a whole lot more flush with legalized gambling on the way. Only recently, a $2 billion streaming deal with Verizon got signed. But the fear of boycotts, driven by what were certain to be more incendiary tweets from the president, caused the league to act at a juncture when, frankly, the situation had pretty much calmed down.
Now, the NFL Players Assocation, if it has a real spine, must go toe-to-toe with the owners on a matter of principle. It says it will. So the argument is only going to become more dragged out and, without question, more strident.
"It doesn't make sense," De Blasio said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" show of the sideline rule. "You know, we would not tolerate it if any other employer said that their employees cannot express their beliefs. You know, right away you'd say it's a violation of the First Amendment. I don't understand why the owners think they can get away from this in any way, shape, or form.
"But what they're doing ultimately is simply bringing more attention to the cause of players, who are saying there's an injustice that has to be addressed."
What would be wonderful to see were more responses from the owners like the Jets' Christopher Johnson (his brother Woody, by the way, is Trump's ambassador to Britain), who said in a statement following the announcement that he'll personally cover any fines assessed against his players for NFL-deemed improper sideline body language during the National Anthem.
"I never want to put restrictions on the speech of our players," Johnson said. "Do I prefer that they stand? Of course. But I understand if they felt the need to protest. There are some big, complicated issues that we're all struggling with, and our players are on the front lines. I don't want to come down on them like a ton of bricks, and I won't. There will be no club fines or suspensions or any sort of repercussions. If the team gets fined, that's just something I'll have to bear."
But don't count on the same from McNair, who has made it clear he wants every Texan standing, period.
So great. They can stand in the locker room. Or kneel. Or pray. Or take a cat-nap. Nobody will know who did what. That's how it worked back when America was "great."
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