Casey, Titans and an end to anthem debate
Jurrell Casey is the perfect last straw.
The Tennessee Titans defensive lineman is the best defensive player on the team, one of the best and most underrated at his position in the league, and one of its most community-devoted players as well. Casey and his wife, attorney Ryann Gray, created the nonprofit Casey Fund to raise money for re-entry programs, inner-city youth programs, halfway houses and other projects. They did this when Colin Kaepernick was known only as a former Super Bowl quarterback trying to re-establish himself as a starter.
Casey is a leader inside and outside the locker room after overcoming a well-documented and difficult upbringing near Los Angeles. If a Titans fan were going to pick one favorite player to support on this team, Casey would seem to be an obvious choice.
Then again, he does raise his right fist as the national anthem ends before each game.
Done with all this? So am I. This is the last thing I’m writing this season about the NFL’s never-ending protest saga – famous last words, I know, but there’s no end in sight to the fatigue over this story. It is time for football, and if we’re being honest, the initial oomph of protests that cast light on important issues has been diminished by fruitless arguing.
That doesn’t mean the protests should stop. I hope all players who feel that conviction continue to make their voices heard in whatever peaceful way they see fit, and I hope the NFL and NFL Players Association can hammer out a policy that makes more sense than the product of utter buffoonery the NFL owners shared in May. That started this all up again. There just isn’t much more to say.
Seeing Casey take a villain turn in the past couple weeks is a handy example of how stupid it has all become. He told CNN on July 18 in London that he will protest during the national anthem, which many took to mean he will kneel, which would make him the first Tennessee Titan to do so. But he was saying he will continue raising his fist, which he did throughout the 2016 season when very few seemed to mind.
It was after President Donald Trump changed this with his divisive comments last September – from a small group of players protesting for a cause to a much larger group protesting largely to defy him – that Casey’s extended fist seemed to bother a lot of people.
He confirmed as much to me Thursday after the first day of camp, when the throng around him should have been asking him about this Titans defense but instead spent more time talking about this. Me included.
Casey reiterated for the millionth time that the point is not out to disrespect the anthem. That was met with the millionth retort that you can’t say you aren’t disrespecting the anthem if you protest during the anthem. Both sides are entrenched. People will feel how they feel.
“Not everybody agrees with everything,” Casey said. “But at the end of the day, I think everyone around here should want equal respect for everybody. I think that should be human nature. But not everybody is nice, kind people and so not everybody’s going to want that. But I’m going to continue to fight and change people’s mindsets on how they see the movement.”
I wish him luck. But I’m more interested in his next meeting with Andrew Luck.
If you’ve been talking about this issue for two years, saying the same things and getting the same responses, it will grow tiresome. If you’re an NFL fan who can’t be an NFL fan anymore because of these protests, it’s your right to move on to something else. If you’re a veteran who supports the protests, you deserve respect. If you’re a veteran who doesn’t support the protests, you deserve respect.
If you send journalists emails filled with hateful language and details of all the crimes NFL players have committed – well, crimes that black NFL players have committed – rest assured that your racism is noted.
If you’re an NFL player who believes in these protests, keep doing them. If you’re an NFL player who got provoked into protesting by Trump, try the schoolyard bully defense tactic – ignore him – the next time he blows the whistle.
And if you’re a Titans fan who looks at everything Jurrell Casey is about and decides you can no longer be a fan of Jurrell Casey, please understand: That is not his problem. That is your problem.
Contact Joe Rexrode at jrexrode@tennessean.com and follow him on Twitter @joerexrode.