Roger Goodell: ‘We were wrong,’ invites NFL players to protest. Will this bring change?
If and when the NFL begins games this year, look for mass protests from many, many players fed up with racial inequality and police brutality in our country.
The league’s commissioner just swung open the doors for it.
Commissioner Roger Goodell went on the NFL’s online channels with a video Friday. In it he admitted his league—which is to say, team owners, his bosses—were wrong to ignore the protest movement started four years ago by Colin Kaepernick kneeling during the national anthems to raise awareness for racial justice and police reform.
“We, the National Football League, admit we were wrong for not listening to NFL players earlier and encourage all to speak out and peacefully protest,” Goodell states.
“We, the National Football League, believe Black Lives Matter.”
Prominent players, such as seven-time All-Pro running back and 2012 NFL most valuable player Adrian Peterson of Washington, are saying the league will be taking Goodell up on his invite to protest.
Goodell’s statement Friday is just about the opposite of the league’s stance from the 2016-19.
Kaepernick began taking a knee in 2016. The national controversy surrounding that included other players such as then-Seahawks cornerback Jeremy Lane that year and eventually Michael Bennett the next joining Kaepernick’s protest and cause. It included white billionaire team owners digging in, a debate about allegedly disrespecting the national flag and military that Saints quarterback Drew Brees reignited this week and President Donald Trump calling a player who doesn’t stand for the anthem a “son of a bitch” who should be fired.
The Seahawks voted the day after Trump said that, in September 2017, to stay inside their locker room, every player, during the anthem for a game at Tennessee.
By 2018 the NFL instituted a rule for the national anthem: all players and team personnel on the field during it must stand. Team owners threatened players to stand for the anthem or, in the case of the Dallas Cowboys, lose employment.
Last year, Seahawks Duane Brown, Quinton Jefferson and Branden Jackson continued doing what they did in 2018: staying in the locker room area during anthems, then coming onto the field to join their teammates for games after the anthem ended.
Then George Floyd was killed after the knee of a Minneapolis police officer was pressed into his neck for more than 8 minutes last week.
The furor nationally over Floyd’s death has included peaceful protests across the country and in most major cities for eight consecutive days into Friday evening. Athletes from all sports have spoken out on injustice and inequality.
Seahawks’ All-Pro Bobby Wagner spoke forcefully this week on the need for whites to listen, learn and understand what it is to be black in America.
Russell Wilson, the face and voice of the franchise, was as impassioned and direct as he’s ever been discussing how the country must change.
Wilson said he saw hope in the way his white teammates—70 of the 90 Seahawks on the offseason roster are black—have responded in team meetings about race and have shown the willingness to learn and help.
Goodell and the NFL have obviously heard this. How could they not?
They sense the tide is changing in the country since Floyd’s death and subsequent outrage. They see more whites than ever may be listening to blacks’ causes and realizing the oppression and the inequality must end.
Money, of course, likely is the motivator here. It always is. Goodell, the NFL and team owners want to be on the right side of this wave of change across the U.S.
Whatever their motivation, the fact remains: the conditions in the league, in rhetoric and theory, are improving toward the NFL accepting players’ rights to protest. Toward their causes to be heard.
We’ll see if that leads to real progress in everyday life.
But at least it sounds better than the league has been for the last four years.
This story was originally published June 5, 2020 at 4:46 PM.
