Players wrestling with pregame ceremony protests
PITTSBURGH — Because Arthur Moats didn’t take the field for last Sunday’s national anthem ceremonies, in keeping with the Pittsburgh Steelers’ carefully scripted pregame plan, the fans who booed at Chicago’s Soldier Field or burned their Steelers jerseys back in Pennsylvania might have assumed that he and his absent teammates didn’t respect the American flag.
They didn’t know that Moats’ father was a Marine, his grandfather served in Vietnam, an uncle and cousin were in the Air Force and another cousin is in the Army. Nor did they realize that love of country and respect for discipline were so ingrained in Moats’ military upbringing in Portsmouth, Va., that even now, at 29, the veteran linebacker folds his clothes just so, tucks the corners of his bedsheets so tight he can flip a quarter off them and addresses others with “ma’am” and “sir.”
The details of Moats’ biography — along with those of his teammates and rivals — have gotten lost amid a weeklong firestorm fueled by a White House-driven narrative that casts the NFL’s roughly 1,800 players as either patriots or, as President Donald Trump put it, “sons-of-bitches,” with no in-between. And the way to tell the difference, the narrative holds, is by the posture each adopts during the NFL’s pregame ceremonies, which has become a litmus test in which players are praised or damned based on whether they stand for the national anthem, sit, kneel or skip the proceedings altogether.
For the majority of NFL players, Moats included, this isn’t a test they signed up for. It’s one that Trump foisted upon them by demanding on Sept. 22 that any player who kneels during the anthem, as former quarterback Colin Kaepernick silently did 13 months ago to highlight issues of police brutality and racial injustice, be fired.
Sunday at Baltimore’s M&T Bank Stadium, the Steelers intend to take part in the anthem ceremonies as a team. And Moats will do as he was instructed since childhood.
“I’ll stand out of respect,” said Moats, a James Madison graduate who recently earned his master’s degree in community and economic development. “I’m not against kneeling either. I understand why you take a knee — to put a spotlight on a problem. What I’d like to do is fix the problem. That’s why I don’t feel like I need to publicly display a protest, even though I may agree with the issue.”
Across the NFL, players are wrestling with how to handle pregame ceremonies, mindful that however much they’d like to keep the realms of sports and politics from colliding, it is out of their control. Whether fair or not, whatever posture they take will be interpreted as having meaning.
The Green Bay Packers and Chicago Bears set the tone for Week 4 of the NFL schedule on Thursday night by standing with their arms linked on their respective sidelines. That appears to be the template other NFL teams will follow.
“As much as some people want us to just shut up and play football and keep the politics to politics, sports and politics have always intersected,” Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers said after Thursday’s game. “If we can help continue a conversation through a demonstration of unity like tonight, I think that’s a good thing.”
In New Orleans, quarterback Drew Brees attempted to get ahead of any game-day controversy by alerting fans via social media on Friday that in an effort “to show respect to all,” the Saints would kneel in solidarity before Sunday’s national anthem and stand together during it. That’s the compromise the Dallas Cowboys struck, joined by their owner Jerry Jones, on Monday night.
Although Trump casts players’ participation in anthem ceremonies as a good-or-evil proposition, the underlying issues tug at players themselves in complex, often contradictory ways. And at the moment, there are at least four issues in play, depending whom you ask: Racial injustice; freedom of expression; the right to push back against a profane, personal attack; and the question of whether an NFL sideline anthem ceremony is a proper occasion for addressing any of the above.
“At this point I feel like the message has definitely gotten misconstrued and kind of lost,” said Washington Redskins defensive back DeAngelo Hall, who stood on the FedEx Field sideline before kickoff Sept. 24, arms linked with those of teammates beside him, in a show of solidarity. “The message isn’t a shot at the flag or a shot at the armed services and people who protect this country. The shot is at social injustice in general. Everybody is trying to band together and say we’re all entitled to our own opinion.”
The message at the heart of the controversy, in Hall’s view, is the one that prompted Kaepernick to take a knee in August 2016: Racial injustice.
“It’s definitely a hot-button topic, and you don’t want to get it wrong because there are so many people watching,” Hall said. “But at the same time, because so many people are watching, you do want to acknowledge that [racial injustice] exists and is here …
“It’s a fine line when it comes to what’s right what’s wrong. Nobody really knows. We’re kind of in uncharted territory. Nobody really knows the right way or the wrong way.”
Quarterback Ben Roethlisberger’s misgivings kept him awake after the Steelers chose to remain in the tunnel leading to the field for last weekend’s anthem ceremonies. It was the squad’s only option after coach Mike Tomlin instructed players that whatever they did, they had to do in unison, and the squad couldn’t agree to stand or kneel as one.
The Seattle Seahawks and Tennessee Titans also chose to not participate in Sept. 24’s anthem ceremonies for the same reason; it was the only way to present a united front among players with differing views.
The next morning, Roethlisberger voiced his regret in a letter he posted on his website, writing in part, “I wish we approached it differently. We did not want to appear divided on the sideline with some standing and some kneeling or sitting.” He added that the Steelers would be on the sideline for future games.