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I hope I spelled his name correctly, anyway, first I admired him because as a veteran who had been in combat ( A Bronze Star recipient) standing and saluting our flag meant more to him than to others on his team that had not. Then, he comes out and says it was all inadvertent, a mistake he says he now regrets. My first thought upon reading that was that other team members and perhaps even the coaching staff had put pressure on him to make such a statement. I THAT was true, how does that square with supposedly demonstrating ones first amendment right to FREE SPEACH???

I sincerely hope that he said that of his own accord, but, in saying that, I don't think he had a thing to be sorry about and from what I have heard so far his team mates and other players from around the league have his back 100% and they also say that he had NOTHING to apologize for because he WAS only exercising 1st. Amendment Right to Free Speech.

I can't see not just taking him at his word.

If you respect him for what he did you should show him the respect of not assuming he's kowtowing to other influences when he says something that doesn't fit with your personal narrative.

c_hawkbob wrote:I can't see not just taking him at his word.

This. Yeah, it sounded like a hostage video, but if he's cool with it, why shouldn't I be?

So VP Pence just left the Colts/SF game after the anthem because there were players kneeling.

Saw this morning that the NFL for the first time in decades is now number 3 in fan support behind MLB and NBA. Last month the NFL was at 56% fan support and today it is under 42%.

Ticket prices across the NFL are down 20-40%.

The NFL allowed the Raiders to put a memorial on their helmet today for the LV shooting incedent but refused to allow a similar symbol after the Dallas cop shootings.

I think that Roger Goodell needs to be fired immediately for letting the NFL become this embroiled in politics and for selectively enforcing rules that allowed it to deteriorate to this level.

What really baffles me is when the players who don't want politics to get into their sport tell the other players to stop messing with their money. With this much decline in the popularity, viewership, ticket prices and memorabilia the NFL will have to start to lower team salary caps. Less salary cap will mean less money for contracts.

Either way, should be a wild ride for the NFL over the next year or so.

idhawkman wrote:So VP Pence just left the Colts/SF game after the anthem because there were players kneeling.

Saw this morning that the NFL for the first time in decades is now number 3 in fan support behind MLB and NBA. Last month the NFL was at 56% fan support and today it is under 42%.

Ticket prices across the NFL are down 20-40%.

The NFL allowed the Raiders to put a memorial on their helmet today for the LV shooting incedent but refused to allow a similar symbol after the Dallas cop shootings.

I think that Roger Goodell needs to be fired immediately for letting the NFL become this embroiled in politics and for selectively enforcing rules that allowed it to deteriorate to this level.

What really baffles me is when the players who don't want politics to get into their sport tell the other players to stop messing with their money. With this much decline in the popularity, viewership, ticket prices and memorabilia the NFL will have to start to lower team salary caps. Less salary cap will mean less money for contracts.

Either way, should be a wild ride for the NFL over the next year or so.

This is fake news. Third in fan support among Trump voters maybe ...

And now, Cowboy's owner Jerry Jones, who's never missed an opportunity to get his name in the headlines, has threatened his team by saying that ""If there is anything disrespecting the flag, then we will not play. Period," Jones said (via the Dallas News.) We're going to respect the flag and I'm going to create the perception of it. ..."

The odd thing is that none of the Cowboy players have sat during the anthem, and Jones himself participated with the team in kneeling during it.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nfl/jer ... smsnnews11

c_hawkbob wrote:
This is fake news. Third in fan support among Trump voters maybe ...

NOPE. Not fake. Here's a link to the report of the Winston Group's poll. http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/shock ... le/2636837

There's others out there also but I won't bore you with them.
Bottom line is that something got Goodell off the ball and made him do his job.

Something I heard the other day was that for Trump, a 50/50 split in sentiment is a great thing.

For the NFL it is a "Disaster". The yahoo finance poll that just camer out shows that 62% of NFL fans will watch less football because of the Anthem protests.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/exclusiv ... 08368.html in case you wanted the link cbob.

If the NFL can't turn this around, player contracts will have to be renegotiated as the money will not be there to increase salary caps for teams. They'll probably have to cut the caps which will put a lot of high priced vets on the street.

#dontmesswithmymoney

How about forgoing the anthem prior to the game?
Is it really necessary? It wasn't a few decades ago and a lot of us at home are heading for the fridge to get our beer while it's going on and there are always some people in the stands yelling, drinking,
and basically being boors.

Is it really necessary?

Maybe not, but why should everyone pretend this country hasn't been a godsend to every damn one of us because they're upset about a few unjust incidents? A few dumbasses decide they don't like honoring the country that affords them literally unimaginable prosperity, so their employer and everyone else should quit saluting it, too?

Ridiculous.

NorthHawk wrote:How about forgoing the anthem prior to the game?
Is it really necessary? It wasn't a few decades ago and a lot of us at home are heading for the fridge to get our beer while it's going on and there are always some people in the stands yelling, drinking,
and basically being boors.

You'll never get the NFL to suspend the anthem itself. It's done at nearly all sporting events at all levels and at other major events and assemblies in general. It would be a huge black eye for the NFL if they had to suspend playing the anthem because they can't control their players. Besides, the playing of the anthem is part of the pageantry and game day experience for the fans, and if it's well done, can really get a crowd motivated.

But what can be done is to keep the teams in their locker rooms during the anthem, which I've proposed in other threads. It's already been done this season, and has been done randomly for years, if not decades, at other major sporting events. I can't recall specifics, but one coach used to keep his teams in the locker room during the anthem because he didn't want them standing around after pregame workouts and wanted to use the 5-10 minutes it takes to get everyone organized and stand for the anthem to do a little more coaching.

All that has to happen is for the owners to band together and require that teams leave the playing field during the anthem, and there wouldn't be a damn thing that the players or their union could do about it.