Recording reveals NFL owners’ thinking

Defensive back Eric Reid doesn’t have a job. Neither does quarterback Colin Kaepernick.

Both men are in their prime. Both are upstanding citizens and considered strong leaders in the locker room.

But the NFL would like you to believe their lack of employment is pure coincidence.

It’s not. That’s one takeaway from the description of a panicked meeting at NFL headquarters in October. The New York Times obtained an audio recording of the meeting, attended by players, Commissioner Roger Goodell and several owners who felt under attack and unmoored by being in President Trump’s crosshairs.

The description of the meeting details absurdities: Buffalo Bills owner Terry Pegulia’s insistence on calling the situation a “glacier moving into the ocean ... a glacier crawling into the ocean,” and suggesting the league find a spokesman in the same vein as the late Charlton Heston’s NRA role. Houston Texans owner Bob McNair offered simplistic advice to players: “You fellas need to ask your compadres, fellas, to stop that other business.”

It took Reid, who wore a Kaepernick shirt over his dress shirt, to bring the conversation back to the man who originated the protest. According to the Times, the room fell quiet when Reid spoke.

“I feel like he was hung out to dry,” Reid said of Kaepernick. “Everyone in here is talking about how much they support us. Nobody stepped up and said, ‘We support Colin’s right to do this.’ We all let him become Public Enemy No. 1 in this country, and he still doesn’t have a job.”

Reid wasn’t the only on-point former 49er there. Wide receiver Anquan Boldin brought the discussion back to the owners’ responsibility, to “letting people know it’s not just the players that care about these issues, but the owners, too.”

The revelations indicated that NFL owners are not a monolith in support of Trump. A few — Robert Kraft, surprisingly, and Jeffrey Lurie — voiced sharp criticism of Trump’s attacks on their league.

But little headway was made. And at least two players continue to pay the price. While Kaepernick is shunned by the NFL, others recognize his contributions. Last weekend, he was awarded Amnesty International’s 2018 Ambassador of Conscience. Reid presented him at the award ceremony in Amsterdam.

Two men involved in a conscience award, from a league that seems to have little of that quality.