A BANNER IDEA: JUST BAN THE ANTHEM
NFL owners should consider scrapping the Star Spangled Banner before games
Here’s an idea to end the NFL’s divisive player protests during the playing of the U.S. national anthem.
Many won’t like it. But it would work. NFL owners gathered here today and Wednesday for their annual spring meeting ought to at least consider it.
That is, just don’t play the Star Spangled Banner anymore before NFL games. Well, except maybe once annually, at the Super Bowl, when you can play it long before teams charge onto the field.
Otherwise, just let the cheerleaders lead cheers, or the drummers drum, before toe hits leather.
That’s because there appears no compromise on the issue among NFL owners.
Some, such as Jerry Jones of the Dallas Cowboys and Bob McNair of the Houston Texans, apparently want to force players to stand at attention during the anthem, regardless of the legal implications. Others, such as Jed York of the San Francisco 49ers, have expressed unequivocal support of players who choose to exercise their constitutional rights to protest during the anthem, even if it means refusing to stand during the anthem in favour of kneeling or sitting.
Banning protests during anthems would only encourage more, and make NFL ownership appear even more unfeeling and out of touch, en masse, than it already is. Some would even charge more racist than it already is.
Conversely, doing nothing leaves open the possibility of inflaming folks on both sides of the issue all over again. It could happen on any given Sunday, following some regrettably inevitable, horrific future social-justice or racially motivated incident, such as another egregious shooting of an unarmed person of colour by a white police officer.
Surely all NFL owners see, even if all won’t acknowledge it, that these protests are bad for business. Many of the outraged have stopped watching games, or at least watch games less frequently.
Again, this is not to degrade, diminish or in any way demean those who have protested, or their reasons for it.
The very man who started the NFL-player-protest movement in August 2016, of course, was San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick. He remains unemployed and that’s another issue.
But two months into the 2016 season, following his first start in a blowout loss at Buffalo, I asked Kaepernick if the tens of thousands of Bills fans who enthusiastically chanted, “USA! USA!” were somehow communicating that they believed Kaepernick’s protest movement, as conducted during the anthem, was un-American.
Kaepernick answered: “I don’t understand what’s un-American about fighting for liberty and justice for everybody, for the equality that this country says it stands for. To me, I see it as very patriotic and American to uphold the United States to the standards that it says it lives by. That’s something that needs to be addressed.
“Until (we) as people recognize and address that some of us have privileges and some of us don’t, and some of us are able to do certain things without consequences, and others of us can’t, things won’t change,’’ Kaepernick suggested. “Me, as a black man who plays football and is considered a celebrity, I’m treated differently than a black man whose working nine to five in the ’hood. And that’s just the reality of it. And it shouldn’t be.”
Only the most racially calloused don’t empathize with people of colour when so victimized, and the merit of the protest cause.
I’m merely suggesting if the time and place for those protests hurts everyone in the league, and inflames a continent for a few hours every Sunday, then just eliminate the setting.
Players hopefully would figure out another effective way to express their societal protests, one that — racists aside — won’t anger so many who otherwise would support them.
The longer protests continue, the more the league pisses off a segment of its enviable fan base.
Somehow, North American sport got along fine without pregame anthems before its widespread adoption around the time of the Second World War.
Those who believe playing the Star Spangled Banner prior to any major sporting contest is as American as deep-fried ice cream, gun ownership and tax loopholes probably can reach out to their congressman, or even president, and burn up social media for a few days or weeks.
Look, NFL games aren’t international competitions pitting country against country. Just pro teams against pro teams. Sometimes just intra-state battles, as when the New York Giants play the New York Jets at the stadium they share in New Jersey. Sometimes even just intra-city affairs, as when the recently relocated Los Angeles Rams face the recently relocated Los Angeles Chargers.
Besides, nearly all Americans above age four know how the anthem tune goes, and most know all the words. They don’t require additional Sunday reminders.
An NFL spokesman last fall said the league wasn’t considering eliminating the pre-game playing of the anthem.
Since then, many have suggested the anthem should be played while teams are in the lockerroom. But what’s to stop players from coming out on the field early and kneeling?
Look, I get it. Mine is not an ideal solution. Just maybe the only effective one.