McCourty well worth a listen
Right away we have a member of the Patriots Family, a trusted, longtime member of that Patriot Way thing, criticizing the National Football League for its new national anthem policy.
“This is dumb,” said safety Devin McCourty yesterday afternoon, this after a Gillette Stadium
OTA session.
The dumbness of which McCourty speaks is the NFL’s make-believe compromise by which players who do not wish to participate in the pregame national anthem in the upcoming season may remain in the locker room but must stand for the anthem if they choose to be on the field.
Sounds great except for the dumb part, which is, well, all of it.
To say the policy wasn’t well thought out is an understatement. But who cares when the debunking and criticizing is being done by sports columnists, talk-show hosts and various barking dogs of social media? We’re all just a bunch of lefties, we’re out of touch, we’re just going for clicks and ratings, we were never any good at sports anyway, and so on.
But now we have Devin McCourty weighing in, and on this we can all agree: When Devin McCourty speaks, people listen.
“I just don’t think that was the right way to try to lay the hammer down,” he said of the new policy, which was announced at last week’s owners meetings by commissioner Roger Goodell. “The NFL is a group where you have owners and players, but it can work together, you know what I mean? We’ll see how that works out, plays itself out.”
Owners. Players. Working together.
McCourty, who turns 31 in August, is beginning his ninth season with the Patriots. The New Jersey native and Rutgers product long ago ascended to the status of Ultimate Patriot, and by that I mean a player who completely buys into the team concept, never embarrasses the organization, contributes to the community and nurtures a good relationship with fans.
But he did earn some tsk-tsking prior to their game against the Houston Texans last season when he took a knee. Now McCourty is criticizing the new policy, and in doing so he has guaranteed that all
of his pregame moments this season will be placed under a microscope for analysis and dissection.
If he appears on the field and takes a knee, resulting in a fine being levied on the Patriots, he will be asked why he did that.
If he appears on the field and stands for the national anthem, he will be asked why he did that.
If he remains in the locker room during the national anthem, he will be asked why he did that.
It will get crazy. Devin, did you take a knee in the locker room during the national anthem?
Who will be doing the asking? The sportswriters, that’s who. Do you know who won’t be doing the asking? That would be the National Football League, if recent history has taught us anything.
It’s preposterous to believe that players such as Devin McCourty — team captains, comfortable at the podium, and possessing a worldview that extends beyond the end zone — have not been invited to participate in a discussion about how best to understand everyone’s feelings.
If you were running the National Football League and you were considering a policy that governs the pregame comportment of players, wouldn’t you invite the Devin McCourtys of the world to contribute to the discussion?
Does anyone truly believe that professional athletes who make the deeply personal, fraughtwith-peril decision to take a knee during the national anthem are doing so with the intent to trample upon the graves of the countless men and women who have given their lives in the defense of our country?
Does anyone truly believe that was Devin McCourty’s end game?
And to those who complain that McCourty has made millions of dollars playing football and because of that somehow “owes” something to the NFL and its fans by not taking a knee, here’s a tired answer to a tired question: Since when does a person’s bank account determine his or her right to be an activist?
It was just this week I filed a Memorial Day column about a small piece of land along Bennington Street in East Boston that’s dedicated to a Private Manuel Mendoza, an Eastie native who a century ago was killed in World War I.
If Devin McCourty takes a knee this season, and even if he doesn’t, how does that undermine or otherwise disparage Pvt. Mendoza’s sacrifice?