Goodell says NFL was wrong for not listening to players sooner

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell says the league was wrong for not listening to players fighting for racial equality and encourages them to peacefully protest.

One day after 2018 NFL MVP Patrick Mahomes and several of his peers released a video demanding the league condemn racism, Goodell made his strongest statement on the issues many players passionately support.

“It has been a difficult time for our country. In particular, black people in our country,” Goodell said in a video released Friday. “We, the National Football League, admit we were wrong for not listening to NFL players earlier and encourage all to speak out and peacefully protest. We, the National Football League, believe Black Lives Matter.”

No major sport in this country is more monochromatic than NASCAR racing. No sport dances to the tune and lyrics of any given Lee Greenwood country song more than NASCAR. No fan base is more likely to fly the occasional Confederate flag at its tailgate than NASCAR’s.

So, when NASCAR’s drivers break from the my-country-right-or-wrong culture of their sport to speak out against very real ills of the nation, their voice can be uniquely resonant. They provide a particularly striking example of just how deeply the malignancy of racism and injustice has eaten into our collective soul.

It should be fairly simple to come out in favor of doing better, of living true to America’s creed. Aren’t we just stating the obvious when we declare the death of George Floyd an abomination and that the video of a white cop applying a knee to the neck of an unresistant black man is the very image of centuries-long oppression? Doesn’t take a hero to speak out on what is irrefutable.

If you are in racing, though, you have to consider the possible costs of questioning anything about the func

RALPH FRESO / ASSOCIATED PRESS Ty Dillon recognizes there’s a risk speaking out on social injustice as a NASCAR driver, but it’s about “not being scared anymore to acknowledge that there is something wrong . ... I want to be part of the generation that forever changes this narrative.”