Mara: Standing ‘right thing to do’
Giants co-owner John Mara seemingly summed up his stance on the NFL’s new national anthem edict during a Wednesday morning interview on SiriusXM NFL Radio, shortly before participating in the vote that passed it.
“I think certainly we all hope that our players stand for the anthem this year,” Mara said from the spring owners’ meetings in Atlanta. “I think it’s the right thing to do.”
Mara need say no more. Maybe he didn’t even need to say that. For Mara is such a trusted and vital ally of Roger Goodell’s on the discussion and passage of league policy that the new anthem guidelines in theory should reflect his own vision and the commissioner’s as much as anyone’s.
Note that the NFL Players’ Association took out its frustration on Mara specifically in its first statement condemning the new so-called “policy” that says protesting players must stay in the locker room or their team will be fined for their lack of “respect.”
“The NFL chose to not consult the union in the development of this new ‘policy,’ ” the union wrote. “The vote by NFL club CEOs today contradicts the statements made to our player leadership by Commissioner Roger Goodell and the Chairman of the NFL’s Management Council John Mara about the principles, values and patriotism of our League.”
Mara and Goodell, an NFLPA source told The MMQB, “effectively told the PA at last fall’s meeting that there would be no rule change.” And yet, here comes this new league decision from up on high.
Mara was i n transit and unavailable for comment when the Daily News reached out for comment on that NFLPA allegation Wednesday afternoon. But his comments on SiriusXM NFL Radio didn’t leave much gray area to his commitment to putting an end to what he twice lamented as a “divisive issue.”
That sounds like code, by the way, for the NFL’s apparent fear of the political and financial ramifications of continuing to draw the ire of the predatory politician who currently occupies the Presidency — in my opinion, anyway.
“It’s an issue that is very divisive, (for) people on both sides of it,” Mara said. “And you have to take the players’ feelings and views into account, as well. So we’re hopeful of coming out of this with some sort of policy that works. I think certainly we all hope that our players stand for the anthem this year. I think it’s the right thing to do.”
Then Mara said this: “We’ve been supportive of those in the past who have decided to protest, but I think we’ve gotten to a point now where it’s become such a divisive issue that I think it’s important that we come out of here with a policy that everybody can respect and adhere to.”
So the implication is, what, that Mara no longer will support those who decide to protest? Certainly when Mara says “we’ve been supportive of those in the past who have decided to protest,” he’s not referring to the league being supportive of unemployed, talented football players like Colin Kaepernick and Eric Reid, correct?
It will be interesting to see Mara enforce this on his own Giants roster, actually, if he is implying that the days of players kneeling at MetLife Stadium are over.
Stud pass-rusher Olivier Vernon, the son of a retired Miami police officer, began kneeling in Week 3 of last season after Donald Trump’s hateful, divisive comments directed at NFL players and stayed kneeling the rest of the year. Vernon could not be reached for comment on Wednesday.
Damon Harrison and Landon Collins joined Vernon kneeling in Week 3, and proceeded to stand with hands on Vernon’s shoulders. On Wednesday, Harrison was vocal on Twitter in opposition to this new NFL policy that basically agreed with Trump’s false premise that the NFL players lack respect for the military and flag. “We love our military,” Harrison tweeted. “We hate the way some people are treated.”
New Giants defensive back Michael Thomas, a free agent signing from Miami, actually has been heavily involved in NFL meetings discussing solutions with league officials on these issues. And Thomas knelt for the national anthem last season as a Dolphin when it was allowed by the organization, playing for an owner in Stephen Ross who later told the Daily News in March: “All of our players will be standing.”
So Mara, Ross and other NFL owners conceivably could try to make protesting players compensate the team for any league fine incurred in violation of this national anthem policy. And they could continue to trumpet the typical argument that the players are employees and that NFL franchises, as companies and employers, have a right to create guidelines by which their employees must abide.
But that would be ignoring how politically driven this decision is, just as this new policy reinforces the league’s ignorance to the fact that you do not dictate how a person protests. Doing so only will beget more protests. That is the point. Instead of continuing to collaborate with the protesting players and address the real issues, however — the real “right thing to do” — the NFL retreated and sided with those in power in this country. For now, anyway. HOWARD SIMMONS/ DAILY NEWS & AP