NFL backtracks on player protests, admits "we were wrong" and "Black Lives Matter"
Hopefully the tweet embeds, but the NFL just had a pretty big Friday news dump. They just tweeted out a 80 second video of Roger Goodell speaking about the recent protests. It's a pretty interesting turn for the league to say the least.
We, the NFL, condemn racism and the systematic oppression of Black People. We, the NFL, admit we were wrong for not listening to NFL players earlier and encourage all to speak out and peacefully protest. We, the NFL, believe Black Lives Matter. #InspireChange pic.twitter.com/ENWQP8A0sv
— NFL (@NFL) June 5, 2020
They were wrong and also black listed a talented young man because of it. Kap should have a permanent middle finger pointed at the NFL.
They should at least offer him a job as Chief Diversity Officer.
The BLM movement is increasingly being criticized on the Internet. But I'm in the real world, on the street, there is no such thing. on the contrary, when you don't ask, everyone is supportive. An interesting paradox. Here there are a number of essays about the BLM movement https://samplius.com/free-essay-examples/black-lives-matter/ in the text there is a clear description of an apathetic attitude in violent protests. I learned this when I was writing an essay on BLM in college. It seems to me that we should not be afraid of such movements, but we need to learn to intelligently manage such dangerous people on the one hand who can harm us on the street
He also took a massive buyout/settlement from the NFL.
And your point?
Please tell me you didn’t go to Michigan..
This is good for the “NFL” to do, but the problem is the owners. It’s one thing for the NFL to admit they were wrong but it is the owners that blacklisted Kap and it is the owners that drove the decision for the NFL’s flag policy. If the owners individually apologized and made meaningful changes that would be a major step. Right now those spineless SOBs will hide behind the NFL statement. Even then, San Francisco tried to support BLM but they were quickly and rightfully criticized given they let Kap go after his protests and their recent statement had zero substance behind it.
Kap was definitely a leader and should be praised as such. But as much as people talk about him being blacklisted by owners, the fact is that he was not very good his last 2 seasons in the league. He was downright mediocre. Now, was he still a better football player than 90% of the backups in the league and probably a handful of starters? In terms of football, the answer is definitively yes. But, when signing players, it’s not just about pure football talent. It’s about how that player will fit with his team, how his presence will impact the locker and whether the benefits of that player are out weighed by potential negative consequences.
Kap was a good player, but any team taking him was also signing up for a potentially divided locker room, and almost certain distraction before every game from the media focus on the (albeit important) social movement that Kap became the face of. Those types of distractions can kill a team.
From a purely societal viewpoint, things like divided locker rooms, media distracting a team and even winning football games should pale in comparison to a cause like fighting racial injustice and inequality. But, NFL owners want to win games, not champion societal changes and movements. So, for each NFL owner, the decision to hire Kap came down to a risk reward analysis, and by the end of his career, it was not unreasonable for an owner to take the position that the reward didn’t justify the risk. Also, owners want to make money and keep fans. Any team that took Kap at that time was going to alienate anywhere from 30-60% of its fan base (varies by team). Again, owners are in the business of winning games and selling jerseys. Can’t blame them if they don’t want to hire a player that may cause them to lose a large chunk of their fans.
I shouldn’t have to say this but it will: I am not saying that this is a good thing for society. But, this is the reality that every owner faced at the time.
Will the same be said of Drew Brees this season?
I hear what you're saying but I really don't think Kap would've been much of a distraction amongst players. If guys like Richie Incognito and Tyreek Hill could find homes on teams, then Kap certainly would've been fine.
But yes, I agree with your 2nd point. The owners feared it because the NFL has made itself such a flag waving, military worshiping org that the team who signed Kap was going to get a huge blowback from the folks who got super offended by Kap's protest in the first place which is a significant number of people.
I've said this a hundred times, and I'll keep saying it - Kap's form of protest was OUT-FUCKING-STANDING! It took peaceful protest for a cause to a professional level. Not only did it bring a mega-shitload of attention, but it remained peaceful (not allowing for even a small hint of violence), interrupted nothing, caused zero damage to property, inconvenienced nobody, and was respectful of those not protesting (just don't kneel).
The people who got their panties waded up over it are the idiots that didn't look at what he was protesting, instead making it about themselves. The media fanned this simplistic and uninformed view into a firestorm, and are just as culpable to Kap's blacklisting as are the NFL's ownership. You can throw in the Fed Gov't on that culpability, also - it turned it's collective back on the person (literally) and totally ignored the cause.
100% +
The Fed gov't did more than turn its back...the President led the charge. Peaceful protest... and he was attacked by the President of the USA who turned up the heat on the owners and again divided the nation.
Also don't buy the idea that Kap would have divided the lockroom or wasn't good enough for even a damn tryout.
The NFL is known for its mediocre, retread, QBs and its also known for controversial figures even some who have broken actual laws, beat their wives/gfs, had/have drug, alcohol and gambling problems etc. No way Kap wasn't good enough to make a roster and help a team.
And there had never been any reports of him being unprofessional, not taking his job seriously. Why would he start doing dumb shit to undermine his team and his cause only to give the anti-Kap crowd real reason to chirp? I guess it was possible...but there wasn't anything in his past to suggest that.
Hell Harbaugh was his coach and Harbaugh loves the guy...you think if he'd been a poor teammate/leader there is any chance of that? No...not at all.
Man, the NFL/Ownership fucked up...imagine had the NFL embraced the opportunity, told the guy in the WH to get back to work and led the charge for the changes that we are all being confronted with now...yeah could have been a short term hit to the bottomline (but there aren't many alternatives to FB in the Fanatics lives), but long-term they would have been on the right side of history and reaped the benefits.
I don't think it's possible to look any worse than the NFL does right now lol.
*Trump waves from a bunker*
That's Chief Inspector Trump to you, pal.
I've been going with Bunker (Inspector) Donnie.
surrounded by a babygate
so what would be better? for them to dig in to their previous position? for them to just pretend they weren't on the wrong side of this?
since the past can't be changed, this is the best thing they could say right now. they aren't copping out with excuses. they don't get any forgiveness for botching it the first time around, but better late than never. as long as they back it up with their actions going forward.
No. They don’t. No one does.
They need to come out and say they blackballed Kaep and didn't care b/c only black people protested at the time thus it did not affect their bottom line as much. They're just doing this now b/c white people care enough to move the needle.
I'd normally expect them to move only after they got some focus groups together. Maybe they did it extra-quick this time.
Except Kaep isn't one of the top 32 QBs on the planet. Hasn't been since 2014. He didn't want to compete for a spot and teams were not willing to put up with what was then a novel sideshow for a backup. See: Tim Tebow.
Quit licking Kaeps boots, accented with pig socks.
Cops that practice police brutality are pigs.
Anyone who uses that term is trash
We just don’t care about long term health and well-being.
Couple thoughts. and a question.
1) that’s a very bold statement. I wonder how much pressure was being exerted on the league by the players union.
2) Would have loved to be in the room where this was debated and what market research stats were cited before coming up with the statement.
3) is it common to capitalize Black People? Just seems odd, grammatically.
3) they probably debated between capitalizing both words, all caps, or all caps bold.
That debate was probably also 4 hours long. Good old PR word-smithing meetings .........
I'm sure their first effort was BlAcK PeOpLe
I believe black people would refer to the color whereas Black refers to the race. I've seen people who know far more than me claim that Black is more respectful, but I'm not 100% sure on the explanation.
So, does that mean the NFL wants to defund police and support all the other crazy demands by the BLM mob?
Systemic oppression is a vague term thrown around by politicians that they can point to whenever they have a grievance.
The only oppression I see is what the black community does to itself with homicides and absent fathers.
Please crawl back into your narrow-minded hate-filled hole and never come out. Unless it's to receive your prize for Biggest Douche in the Universe. In that case, rightly deserved.
I deal in facts and African Americans represent only 15% of the population but commit 53% of homicides in America. BLM does not care about those victims because it does not advance their agenda. Facts.
It's so tiring to just see endless bullshit confidently spewed from ignorant people. Stop being lazy and quit being a racist jackass.
You must have been one of those people who set stores and cars on fire and looted every business within walking distance.
You do not deserve to be associated with Don Browns mustache. From now on, you will be known to the board as Gerg Robinson’s Beaver.
From your lips to the mods' ears. Please make this happen!
You're right!
13% of the population, over 30% of the abortions, 20 million to date.
70%-80% of African-American children born out of wedlock, and an extremely high percentage of them living single-parent and fatherless homes.
Thousands and thousands of black people die every year from black on black crime, drugs, gang Warfare, and just other general criminal activity.
In places like Detroit, and I'm sure it is not much different in other large minority urban areas, half the adult population walks around semi-literate with barely above a grade school education. No college and a menial job are about the only hope they have, thanks to their parent(s) apathy about their education.
I don't see no white person putting a gun to black people's head and forcing them to have a lack of sexual self-control, to use drugs, to be absentee fathers, to engage in criminal activity, etc. These are freely chosen irresponsible behaviors and choices that have absolutely nothing to do with white people.
But it is so much easier to blame a bad cop and ASSUME it was a racial incident, then to actually take a good hard look in the mirror and see where 99.99 percent of your oppression is.
The race pimps, liberal leadership have done a "wonderful" job of brainwashing a community of people(and a bunch of brain dead white people)and creating urban plantations for the black people to live on run by there white liberal Masters. All we need is a cotton plant that grows up north and they will be all set.
What is lazy is not refuting someone’s statement no matter if it’s completely wrong or right but just yelling racist. So don’t be lazy and refute what this person said.
WhY wOn'T yOu DeBaTe Me?!
You realize just about everything you said in your post is wrong.
1. What he said isn't bullshit. It is indeed fact.
2. He's not being ignorant.
3. He's not being lazy.
4. Nothing about his post was racist.
Look, I don't like what he said either, but this tired old high and mighty response doesn't do anyone any good. It makes you look like a fool. Instead, try debating facts with facts. Or are you just being a lazy jackass?
This is stupid. Most of the "mass murders"in this country area black on black gang related killings. They are typically "retaliation"killings in poor neighbors, and anecdotally, frequently at neighborhood or family gatherings. Try reading some scholarly articles on gun involved killings that include more than 4 people who are not all immediate family. The occasional story comes along that is murder of an entire family/suicide and theses instances skew social statistics.
To ignore this is ignorance and absolute refutation of all statistics that area collected on homicides. His comment was not racist lazy or ignorant. Your response, however, was lazy and ignorant.
For you and mustache man to cite statistics, like the high level of black vs black homicides, as a red hearring to distract from the core facts of the problem is actually racist of you.
First, those black on black homicides, which you seem to want to treat as an innate black issue, are caused by the very “knee on neck” racist treatment of blacks by whites and society. So in fact, those black vs black homicide statistics that you want to use as a distraction from core racism issues, is instead a supporting fact of the racist problem you are trying to ignore.
Secondly, the fact that black on black homicides are larger than police homicides of innocent victims DOES NOT EXCUSE anyone from how unjust these murders are.
Did you really just say that black on black homicides are caused by racist treatment of blacks by whites? And get upvoted? This country is so fucked.
At least your second point is correct, that nothing excuses the unjustness of some of the police's actions. I'm actually more outraged by Breonna Taylor's murder. No-knock raids at the wrong house have led to multiple murders and need to be stopped immediately.
That is some serious off the rails crazy train shit.
I can't believe how racist I am because I said it's true that the majority of murders are committed by a minority of the population and frequently have a particular form they follow that accounts for most of them. SO RACIST to point out that a condemnation of the truth by calling it racist is lazy. RACIST. I made no argument about why or about the NFL's treatment of players or deaths caused by police, but agree that the truth is true and that lazy ignorance is lazy and ignorant... SO RACIST.
I guess you can't believe the uber liberal Washington Post.
In 2019, They posted that 1,004 people in the US were killed by cops, of them that were declared to be unarmed, 20 were white and 9 were black, oh yeah and 89 cops were killed last year. That kinda puts the kibosh on blacks being systematically killed by the police conspiracy.
I am supposed to trust numbers given by police reports? The PD in buffalo says that 75 year old man tripped and fell..no wrong doing there. Video shows exactly what happened, 2 cops shoved him and were suspended. And that was 75 year old white male in the incident, so excuse me if I don't trust those numbers.
Take a look the the videos caught of the LAPD in the last week and tell me there is not something terribly wrong.
Just imagine the shit they were getting away with before cell phone cams existed! To be protected by their qualified immunity bs all they had to state was the "suspect was resisting arrest".