NFL Protest Discussion

Adamocovic wrote: »

The poll stuff is interesting but just really addressing this part.

In my opinion staying out of it would have possibly been worse than choosing either side. You would end up not pleasing either, causing a greater divide and then a grounds for both sides to find a common agreement in the fact that they would both be annoyed/angry with the lack of action or help by the league in regards to it's own activities. I don't think staying out of it was every a viable option with the media attention and fans reaction.

They were never going to make both sides happy but by choosing one they enraged the protesters and it still didn’t satisfy those who were against the protest. They had plenty of cover to not choose a side, especially with the first amendment. The intense focus was always going to blow over and pretty much had by the time they brought in their new policy.

I would say I find it funny when people use the phrase "small majority", I understand what you're saying but it's a funny thing to read, still a majority. And again, I don't agree that this is down to the league just "giving into Trump". If nobody shared the same opinions as him in America regarding this situation then his words would have had no influence.

Like I said, if a majority of the fans were angered by the actions and threathening to boycott, that's financial losses to the league. Tie in their link with American Military and the sponsorships and support that comes with that they would have feared siding with Kap would have been seen as "un-patriotic" by the fans and media representives who were calling it so, and result in further losses.

It is a similar mindset to this that has Britain in its current Brexit situation. Just because a small majority feel a certain way about a vague question it doesn’t make sense to assume the best course of action is the most aggressive one in the direction of that question.

You’re making a huge and incorrect assumption that people saying they didn’t support the protest means they are going to boycott the NFL or its sponsors. There is no evidence of any sort of sizeable boycott last year during the height of the media attention on protests.

Also why use the phrase "even settled"? Could all this have been handled better? Definitely but a settlement is not a win or lose for either side. I posted an interesting article about this early in the week. Although the settlement is to do accusations of collusion stopping Kaepernick from being signed, I don't believe you can use the fact they settled as a justification of how poorly you believe they handled it. Both sides settled. Would you say Kaepernick made poor judgement calls and even settled?

I used the phrase because it shows how much the NFL backtracked. They went from bringing in a policy to putting it on hold to deferring it potentially indefinitely and for Kaepernick they went from claiming he had no case and trying to get it thrown out of court to settling. I feel Kaepernick definitely also made some poor judgement calls but to me he was coming from such a position of weakness that getting a settlement is a win, especially when it could include benefits that the court could never give him (eg a route back to the league, impact on their policies).

I reckon we'll have to agree to disagree regarding the motiviation or reasoning behind the NFL's stance/decision. While I agree it was handled poorly, I do not believe it was simply old white owners of the NFL "giving into Trump". It was a business decision based on fear of losses to earnings.

Don't think either of us will be swaying but it's always interesting hearing other side.

Even if it was a business decision it was a terrible one which is why they quickly backtracked. They annoyed a huge group of their own employees and customers due to fear of a practically non-existent boycott and the decision they made didn’t even satisfy the most vocal opponents to the protest (Trump etc.)

I think agreeing to disagree here is the right move but a good discussion.

For those who were remarking on Kaepernick in the locker room, here are comments from one of Kaepernick's former teammates on how he approached the situation in the locker room and how he warned players from early in the protest that they might get blacklisted

https://www.ninersnation.com/2019/2/20/18232588/colin-kaepernick-settlement-kneeling-players-michael-wilhoite

Foxtrol wrote: »

For those who were remarking on Kaepernick in the locker room, here are comments from one of Kaepernick's former teammates on how he approached the situation in the locker room and how he warned players from early in the protest that they might get blacklisted

https://www.ninersnation.com/2019/2/20/18232588/colin-kaepernick-settlement-kneeling-players-michael-wilhoite

He comes across very well throughout this whole thing does Kaepernick.

munstermagic11 wrote: »

Report: Colin Kaepernick, Eric Reid to Receive Less Than $10 Million in Settlement With NFL
https://www.si.com/nfl/2019/03/21/colin-kaepernick-settlement-amount-withdraws-collusion-case-eric-reid

Big difference from the 60m-80m that was initially reported. 10m (before legal fees) shared still isn't a bad pay day, but does seem cheap for the NFL to have this go away.

It's odd how wrong reports got it.

Where was their source or was it just rumours that ran wild. Very cheap for the NFL to try quiet this up and move on.

Foxtrol wrote: »

Or how wrong this report is. It is a confidential agreement, so I’m not sure how you can justify fully trusting one over the other.

Now that there are conflicting reports, most people will likely just believe the one that fits their narrative or what they hope happened.

True. Maybe it's somewhere in the middle.

The initial value reported has appeared to come from speculation/estimations from NFL officials, while the second came from Wall Street Journal citing sources briefed on the deal. Maybe we will never get the full information but since so many news sites have been quick to correct the previous report it would lead me to believe it's more plausible the initial report was not certain (based of estimations would suggest that too) and rather the new one has more grounds to be believed. However you could be right.

Then again perhaps the above will be proven wrong, I'm just personally more likely to believe it. I don't think many will still believe the 80mill figure (although few seemed to) due to nearly every journalist mentioning it has now said it was incorrect, but this one may not be entirely correct either like you said.

If it was about the United States anthem, why the silence from Trumps base on this?

Probably because it wasn't actually about the anthem at all. I would discount the few dozen (out of tens of millions) of Trump supporters that may have criticised him for this though. For the rest, it wasn't about the anthem.

Deleted User wrote: »

Police brutality dominating the news worldwide and his protest getting a lot of reaction on.social media again, in a "they should have listened to him" way.

It is laughable to see Trump, Pence, wider GOP, and their supporters in the media state how much they value peaceful protests, after spending years abusing players in the NFL and elsewhere for their peaceful protest.

Pence cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars when he flew to a Colts game for the photo op of him walking out in disgust at their protest

I always suspected that Brees is a knob.

jack presley wrote: »

Malcolm Jenkins thinks so too it seems. This is the end of a video (since deleted) that he posted on his Instagram.

https://twitter.com/TimothyRRyder/status/1268294832646225920

Here's a bit more leading up to that. I'm sure the full one is out there.

He has been protesting in Philly over the last few nights so not surprised at this reaction.

Thomas and Sanders also made comments about it. Drew will have a lot to do to try to dig himself out of this

https://twitter.com/JClarkNBCS/status/1268296832175742977?s=20

I have no problem with what brees said.

Typical anti white racism from the blacks.

adrian522 wrote: »

What Brees said was pretty stupid and he was rightly called out on it from everyone from his teammates, Lebron James, Aaron Rodgers, Richard Sherman, Michael Thomas etc.

Brees showed his ignorance of the issues black people in the US are facing and showed he either didn't care or didn't take the time to understand what Kaepernick was protesting about in the first place.

Instead of showing same compassion and understanding of current events he came out with the same tired agenda that has been used to discredit and blackball Colin from the league.

He did this at the worst possible time. At the very least any chance of a post playing career in media have taken a big setback.

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt

Not this again...


He wanted a starting job and top wages. He didnt play well enough to justify that. And wont take a backup job. Look at winston, etc that took low contracts as backups after losing starting jobs.


It's nothing to do with race, it's ability and salary, end of.

ELM327 wrote: »

Not this again...


He wanted a starting job and top wages. He didnt play well enough to justify that. And wont take a backup job. Look at winston, etc that took low contracts as backups after losing starting jobs.


It's nothing to do with race, it's ability and salary, end of.

He was a starting QB when he took the knee ffs.

ELM327 wrote: »

I have no problem with what brees said.

Typical anti white racism from the blacks.

Of course you don't, the rest of your post says all we need to know about why you feel that way.

Remarkable insecurity on show.