The NFL and its owners have reached what they see as a “collaboration” on a new policy for the national anthem, following a year of player protests during it.
NFL players see the league’s definition of “collaboration” to be lacking one fundamental of the concept: a partnership.
Commissioner Roger Goodell announced a new anthem policy Wednesday, saying team owners including the Seahawks’ Paul Allen approved it unanimously. The policy requires “all team and league personnel on the field shall stand and show respect for the flag and the Anthem,” while giving players the option to stay off the field during the anthem—and himself the power to “impose appropriate discipline on league personnel who do not stand and show respect for the flag and the Anthem.”
Commissioner Roger Goodell announces new NFL anthem policy he says owners approved unanimously today: pic.twitter.com/auPnqoPyzl
— Gregg Bell (@gbellseattle) May 23, 2018
Not even 20 minutes after Goodell announced that policy at the close of league meetings in Atlanta, the NFL Players’ Association called out the NFL, essentially saying the owners deliberated and decided on it inside a self-serving echo chamber.
The union objected to this even on Wednesday before Goodell announced the policy.
“Maybe this new rule proposal that is being voted on is a ‘compromise’ between the NFL office and club CEOs on various sides of the issue, but certainly not with player leadership; we weren’t there or part of the discussions,” George Atallah, the union’s assistant executive director for external affairs, posted on Twitter.
So instead of owners having “reaffirmed their strong commitment to work alongside our players to strengthen our communities and advance social justice,” as the league’s policy statement asserts, the NFL has created more anger. It has added to the perception this is all for the NFL establishment’s effort for public-relations optics, not a true collaboration with its players to find common ground on the issues concerning them.
The Seahawks have been in the center of the anthem controversy for the last year. In May 2017 Seattle became the first and still the only team to host quarterback Colin Kaepernick on a free-agent visit. The former Super Bowl quarterback with the San Francisco 49ers has been unemployed since January 2017, after he knelt during the anthems at 49ers games in the 2016 season to protest social injustice in our country.
Last August, Pro Bowl defensive end Michael Bennett began sitting on his team’s bench during the anthem before Seahawks games. He did that throughout last season, to bring attention to the mistreatment of minorities.
The Seahawks traded Bennett to Philadelphia in March.
The one game in 2017 Bennett did not sit on the bench during the anthem is the one Seahawks instance last season that most closely relates to the new policy the league announced Tuesday.
Last September, on the weekend that President Trump berated NFL players that were protesting during the anthem, the Seahawks decided the night before their game at Tennessee they would not come out of their locker room for the anthem, as had been the league’s policy for the last 15 years or so. The Titans learned of what the Seahawks were doing and also stayed in their locker room.
This was the result:
Bennett called the Seahawks’ action that day “revolutionary.”
After announcing its policy on Wednesday, including its intent to punish protesting players, the NFL may be creating another revolution among its players.
