Trump canceling Eagles’ visit shows NFL failed
Look at the bright side, Philadelphia Eagles: Your team won’t be positioned in the Rose Garden as a political prop after all.
President Trump’s decision to rescind the White House’s invitation wipes out what loomed to be the most awkward championship event ever. Multiple reports indicated fewer than 10 Eagles players were expected to be on hand for the ceremony, leaving a majority of those making the trip to Washington, DC, likely opting to spend Tuesday performing community service.
Now the Eagles can join the company of the defending NBA champion Golden State Warriors as title winners with better things to do than share the stage with Trump.
Sure, it’s a shame, as former Eagles receiver Torrey Smith expressed on Twitter in summarizing the flip as a “cowardly act” by Trump. Players who embraced the idea of being honored at the White House suddenly won’t get that opportunity. They’ll have to settle for having a place in history, at the intersection of sports, politics, polarization and activism.
Too bad there’s no such silver lining for the NFL.
Trump’s political punt underscored just why it was such a bad idea for NFL owners to pass that new, murky national anthem policy, as if it would squash the criticism coming from the President. Players now will be allowed to remain in the locker room for the anthem, but those who are on the sideline are required to stand and show respect, lest their teams be subjected to a fine.
Here’s to hoping they know better now.
Trump – who has called for players to be fired for protests and suggested that those who continue to do so “maybe... shouldn’t live in the country” – apparently never had any intention of pulling his punches on the NFL over the anthem issue, whether they changed the policy or not.
NFL owners look silly about now in weighing the criticism from Trump as one of the significant factors for changing the anthem policy. Kowtowing to him was hardly the ticket to reducing the attention on the matter... or to solidifying its fan base.
No, that plan is backfiring, with more fuel now heaped on the issue.
Trump made that perfectly clear late Monday when he took another shot at the NFL and its new anthem policy on Twitter. Scolded Trump: “Staying in the Locker Room for the playing of our National Anthem is as disrespectful to our country as kneeling. Sorry!”
No, the peaceful protests – including kneeling, as ex-49ers QB Colin Kaepernick began at the suggestion of former Green Beret Nate Boyer – are First Amendment expressions targeting police brutality and social justice inequities that disproportionately affect African-Americans and other people of color.
But that’s where we are, still, with this range in worldviews. It brings to mind the remarks from Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie last October, when several team owners, Commissioner Roger Goodell and other NFL officials held a summit with players, including Eagles standouts Malcolm Jenkins and Chris Long.
Not a single Eagles player, by the way, has kneeled during the anthem. Jenkins, a co-founder of the Players Coalition, raised a first until later in the season after owners struck a deal to support social campaigns led by players. Long, the most prominent white player to speak openly about social issues that concern African-Americans, stood alongside his teammate with his hand on Jenkins’ shoulder during the anthem.
Neither Jenkins nor Long has declared whether they will come on the field for the anthem this season, the option that Trump blasted late Monday. Without a new policy, they wouldn’t have to contemplate whether they would come out of the locker room.
But at least one decision was made months ago. They weren’t going to visit with Trump at the White House, anyway.
(USA Today/TNS)