Inside the muddled NFL protest
Over a hectic 24 hours, the NFL struggled to control a crisis, resulting in ad hoc and mixed messages from players and teams.
Roger Goodell is an early riser who is often up by 5.30am. Travelling away from home on Saturday, the NFL commissioner woke to an unexpected crisis: The multibillion-dollar sports empire he manages was under attack by the president of the United States.
In a speech Friday night, followed by a series of tweets Saturday morning, President Donald Trump castigated NFL players for kneeling during the national anthem. He said owners should fire any player who protests. He said games were boring and ratings were down, and called on fans to boycott the league because they love their country.
Goodell and many of the league’s fractious 32 owners soon decided Trump’s statements were less a defence of the flag than an unprecedented assault on their business. The commissioner and other league executives entered a 24-hour scramble — by text, telephone and email — to take control of the narrative and deliver an effective response.
By many measures, they didn’t quite succeed. This account of the weekend’s manoeuvring — based on interviews with numerous people affiliated with NFL teams, the players union and the league itself who were directly involved — shows the various parties had spent the weekend in a feverish debate over how to respond to Trump.
Many players and their union — emboldened and angry — wanted to make a strident political statement. Some owners and the league favoured a broader message about unity in the face of the president’s criticism, with some wary of clashing with the president. Goodell stood in the middle, his authority limited by battles with both players and owners over controversial disciplinary decisions.
As kick-off approached for the first NFL game, Goodell and other league officials didn’t have a clear idea of what was likely to happen when the players took the field — if they took the field at all.
In the end, the move that set the tone was made by a Pakistani immigrant, in a soccer stadium in London more than 3000 miles from the NFL’s Midtown Manhattan headquarters.
If a player wants the privilege of making millions of dollars in the NFL,or other leagues, he or she should not be allowed to disrespect....
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 23, 2017
...our Great American Flag (or Country) and should stand for the National Anthem. If not, YOU'RE FIRED. Find something else to do!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 23, 2017
It is still not clear if the widespread protests from Sunday will have the intended result. Late on Monday, Trump tweeted about “tremendous backlash” from fans, and there are signs of gathering blowback. After a lone Pittsburgh Steeler, war veteran and offensive tackle Alejandro Villanueva, stood at the edge of a stadium tunnel for the anthem, his jersey rocketed to the top of the sales charts at the official NFL store. Several players expressed misgivings about the protests, with Steelers’ star quarterback Ben Roethlisberger saying he wished the team had “approached it differently” to be clear they had respect for the anthem.
The league, however, said the players acted within their rights and that it is the president who is “out of touch,” as NFL spokesman Joe Lockhart said on Monday. He stressed that the league is “united” even as the demonstrations varied from team to team and player to player. While dozens of players took a knee, many teams locked arms while still standing for the anthem. Then in prime time on Monday night, the Dallas Cowboys and owner Jerry Jones knelt together but then stood for the anthem. A league spokesman later said the decision was finalised “moments” before the teams took the field. In a new tweet Tuesday morning, Trump called the move “big progress.”
New NFL statement pic.twitter.com/XHPgVvPPfH
— Brian McCarthy (@NFLprguy) September 23, 2017
Roger Goodell of NFL just put out a statement trying to justify the total disrespect certain players show to our country.Tell them to stand!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 23, 2017
Taken together, the protests were unprecedented but also ad hoc and featuring mixed messages at times. Even Villanueva, hailed by many on Sunday as a solitary defender of the flag and anthem, later said he didn’t intend to stand apart and that he had no intention of making his teammates “look bad.”
The demonstrations show a league that is still searching for the right balance between supporting its players—many of whom say they are deeply offended by the president’s statements—and a fan base in which a sizeable number take umbrage at behaviour they find unpatriotic.
The stakes are enormous. After years of unrivalled supremacy atop the sports ecosystem in the U.S. the NFL’s stature has taken several direct blows during the past year. Last season, audiences shrunk for its games, the country’s most expensive and most watched entertainment franchise. In addition, the league acknowledged for the first time that it believes there is a connection between the head trauma players sustain and long-term brain damage. At lower levels of the sport, football participation is declining throughout much of the country.
To reverse those trends and maintain its pre-eminent position in American sports, the NFL needed to get its response to Trump right.
The NFL Players Association moved first. NFLPA executive George Atallah checked his phone before bed on Friday night and saw messages on social media about Trump’s speech in Alabama. Atallah, NFLPA executive director, DeMaurice Smith, director of player affairs Don Davis and President Eric Winston worked remotely until 2am on a statement in which they said the union refused to apologise for its players’ decision to express their beliefs. That statement went out at 6:30am. Trump followed minutes later with his first tweet.
Meanwhile, Goodell, Lockhart, the league’s general counsel Jeff Pash, and its chief operating officer Tod Leiweke, and Troy Vincent, the former player and director of football operations for the league, together tried to unpack what had transpired.
The NFL has chosen not to discipline players for kneeling, but the man who started the movement, Colin Kaepernick, has paid a heavy price. A free agent, Kaepernick has failed to find a job this season. Still, within the league office, the belief was that the controversy appeared to be dying down before Trump launched his attack Friday.
Among the first calls Saturday morning was to New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, a Trump donor and friend, who agreed that this attack was far different than the president’s previous comments about the league.
Tremendous backlash against the NFL and its players for disrespect of our Country.#StandForOurAnthem🇺🇸
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 25, 2017
Lockhart, a veteran of President Bill Clinton’s battles following his infamous affair with Monica Lewinsky, pushed for the league to stress the game’s ability to bring together tens of millions of Americans from every background and race. By midday, Goodell had released a statement that Trump had shown “an unfortunate lack of respect for the NFL, our great game and all of our players, and a failure to understand the overwhelming force for good our clubs and players represent in our communities.”
Meanwhile the union leadership was in close contact with team player representatives, such as the Seahawks’ Richard Sherman and the Eagles’ Malcolm Jenkins, who were advocating that players should lock arms in solidarity, as several teams had done last season with relatively little controversy.
In a tweet Sunday morning, Jenkins urged that strategy as a sign of respect and support for the players rights to express themselves and a sign that they would not be bullied.
The league, meanwhile, stayed in close contact with most of its owners but opted not to provide guidance beyond saying the team should express unity.
At the team level, that meant owners and players needed to decide for themselves how to proceed, even as they handled the typical preparations for the 14 games on Sunday.
But the day’s first kick-off was already approaching in London, where the Jacksonville Jaguars were playing the Baltimore Ravens in one of the NFL’s annual forays overseas. Due to the time difference, the game was scheduled to kick at 9:30am. ET, and both the NFL and Jaguars owner Shahid Khan knew their approach could set a precedent for the games to follow.
A Pakistani immigrant who made billions by founding a successful auto-manufacturing company, Khan donated to Trump but is also known to be close to his players. When he arrived at Wembley Stadium for the game Sunday, Khan immediately went to head coach Doug Marrone’s office to talk with Marrone, general manager David Caldwell and football operations chief Tom Coughlin.
After a brief discussion, they summoned the team captains. Khan told them if the players wanted to make a statement, he hoped it was something that all 53 of the players could embrace. Also, if they would allow it, he wanted to stand with them.
Minutes before kick-off in London, Khan sent word to the NFL that he was going to lock arms with his team. Back in New York, where Goodell was now ensconced with this lieutenants, no one objected.
Over the next few hours, other owners including Stephen Ross of the Miami Dolphins and Jeff Lurie of the Philadelphia Eagles, did the same as Khan.
In Los Angeles, 24 hours of team discussionswithin the Chargers — which stretched into the team’s pre-game meeting at its hotel Saturday night — culminated moments before kick-off. Dean Spanos, the team’s chairman, went into the locker roomto tell his players he stood behind themwhether they planned to kneel, lock arms even raise their fists — and he wanted to stand with them.
As the protests mounted through Sunday and into Monday, politicians and fans took sides in a vigorous national debate over the role of social activism in sports and whether the national anthem should be a sacred time to put politics aside.
Through it all, the two main parties — Trump and the NFL — had no contact. “If the president wants to engage in something positive, productive and constructive, he knows our number,” said Lockhart, the NFL spokesman.
WSJ
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