America’s passion boots opening kickoff
In a way, it is perfect that the National Football League has become the primary vehicle to argue over the American national anthem. The Washington Post polled Americans last week and found the NFL was the No. 1 sport in the country by a mile, with 60 per cent of respondents calling themselves fans. Only two other sports were above 40, and one of them was college football, or NFL Jr.
So of course “The Star-Spangled Banner” would become a fight. The NFL returns lugging two main storylines: one, the ongoing and growing protest by players over the treatment of African-Americans by law enforcement, and two, the champion New England Patriots, who gave a Super Bowl ring to friend-of-theteam President Donald Trump and then lost their opener Thursday night with the lowest opening-night ratings since 2009. The Trump curse isn’t perfect, but it’s real, man. Everything he touches.
Those will unfold against the same old things: the familiar colour palates that instantly identify the essence of every team involved, Jacksonville excepted; the sounds of the game, like Al Michaels and Cris Collinsworth, which make you feel like you are contentedly exhaling smoke from a cigarette you don’t remember lighting; the NFL’s war on concussion research, which continues apace.
The NFL has always had success working over players, because the players don’t have guaranteed contracts and are disposable labour, and can’t afford the sacrifice it might take to win labour negotiations. So everyone got a leader with the power to screw up the adjudication of literally any policy, any decision, any public statement, and even if he happens to come to the correct and defensible conclusion, you can never trust that the process was anything but wrong. But it doesn’t matter, because rich constituents gave him that power, and he won it in the wider contest from the little people, over whom he rules.
Wait, are we still talking about Roger Goodell?
Anyway, of course Goodell won’t say that Colin Kaepernick, the leader of this protest movement and more of a symbol every day, is being blackballed, even though it’s clearly what’s happening. In the past two weeks Aaron Rodgers, Von Miller and Cam Newton, among others, have said Kaepernick should be in the league. The anthem protests continued through the preseason, with players kneeling or raising their fists, or in the case of some white players, putting their arms around or hands on Black teammates. Players are actually exerting power beyond the field, which is not how the NFL usually works. It peaked in Cleveland, where nearly a dozen players knelt together during the anthem. Sometimes, the Browns aren’t sad or funny.
So, of course, the Cleveland police union decided to respond to a protest during the anthem by refusing to hold the giant flag during the anthem in Cleveland’s opener. Or, police protesting an anthem protest over police misconduct with . . . an anthem protest. Oh.
Then Seattle defensive end Michael Bennett said he was wrestled to the ground and held at gunpoint by police in Las Vegas while fleeing from what was thought to be gunfire, and the debate that Kaepernick started had an NFL face. It is the central dynamic of Black Lives Matter, under a president who encourages police to be rougher with suspects and pushes racist legislation, and the debate is happening in the NFL, of all places, all because Colin Kaepernick knelt, and was exiled for it. As one NFL owner told Kent Babb of the Washington Post, “no one wants to deal with that . . . it’s not collusion, it’s common sense.” So the Cowboys can sign a domestic abuser like Greg Hardy, but Kaepernick is a third rail. Protesting inequality is more politically fraught than actually breaking the law.
So welcome back to the NFL: violent, compelling, brilliant, sickening and maybe in decline. Worker safety is under assault, the Patriots are the champs, and the most political Black man in the business is out. Football is the most American sport, and never more than now.
This space is bad at picking NFL games, or at best mediocre: might as well remind everyone before we get started. As always, all lines could change.