The NFL responded in full voice to comments by Donald Trump last week. After the president spoke out against players who protest during the national anthem and attempts to get violence out of football, NFL players, coaches, and owners responded by locking arms and/or dropping to a knee at various points before games in a sign of solidarity against Trump.
One of the more unique displays came from the Dallas Cowboys, as the entire team dropped to a knee and got up before the national anthem played. In the middle of things was owner Jerry Jones, whose appearance in the entire display made some people turn their heads. This was somewhat out of skepticism, as Jones is a noted Trump donor and has spoken out against people kneeling during the national anthem in the past.
As it turns out, that skepticism might have been warranted. ESPN’s Don Van Natta Jr. and Seth Wickersham published a behind-the-scenes look into how the NFL and the NFL Players Association handled the league-wide response to Trump.
There are a number of interesting nuggets in here — like Washington owner Dan Snyder harping on this being bad business, because a $40 million sponsor might end its agreement with the league (that number works out to about $1 million per team, which… isn’t that much relatively speaking) — but none were more interesting than Jones’ attempts at taking over the conversation.
In the meeting, many owners wanted to speak, but the discussion soon was “hijacked,” in the words of one owner, by Jones, a $1 million contributor to Trump’s inaugural committee fund and who declined comment through a spokesman. The blunt Hall of Famer mentioned that he had spoken by phone, more than once over the past 24 hours, with Trump. Jones said the president, who only a few years ago tried to buy the Buffalo Bills, had no intention of backing down from his criticism of the NFL and its players. Jones — who a day earlier for Monday Night Football in Arizona had orchestrated a team-wide kneeling before the anthem ahead of rising to stand when it started to play — repeated his refrain that the protests weren’t good for the NFL in the long run.
For someone who was so eager to get in on the response to Trump — Jones was in the middle of the Cowboys’ protest and looked directly into the camera — he sure seemed eager to let everyone know that it was a bad idea behind closed doors.
(Via ESPN)
