FLY LIKE EAGLES!

NOW WOULD be the best time for the NFL to live up to its reputation as a copycat league. The Philadelphia Eagles won Super Bowl LII, so the league’s 31 other teams will study and incorporate elements of the Eagles’ blueprint in hopes of replicating the result themselves: from adding more run-pass options (RPOs) for their quarterbacks, to being more aggressive on fourth down, to recognizing that no defensive line can be too deep.

But this time, it’s not copying the Eagles’ football that is important. What the NFL’s commissioner, owners and franchises need to do is copy the Eagles’ social awareness, the organization’s handling of some our nation’s most sensitive and significant issues, and its constructive dialogue and actions related to them.

The Eagles players’ social activism is welldocumented and admirable. And it seems Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie encourages this culture in which his players feel comfortable speaking up against social injustice, in support of the issues most important to them, and in which he stands beside them and not above them.

His players’ freedom without consequence to decide to skip the ceremonial visit to the White House — due to President Donald Trump’s rampant racial and sexist prejudices and divisive rhetoric, just to name a few of his inane qualities — is the strongest example yet of what his players feel empowered to stand up against.

And this isn’t just about politics, though Lurie did donate $2,700 to Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Lurie is party to the NFL owners’ misguided path, evidenced most recently by the league’s tone-deaf and heavy-handed anthem policy. But he has struck a much more constructive public tone and it seems his franchise’s culture is healthier because of it.

In Week 3 of last season, when President Trump called any NFL player who knelt for the national anthem a “son of a b----” who should be “fired,” Lurie stood on the sideline locking arms with his players in solidarity.

Several of the Eagles’ player leaders are prominent figures in the protests against police brutality and racial inequality championed by the first player to kneel, the since-blackballed Colin Kaepernick. And while no Eagles players knelt for the national anthem last season, defensive end Chris Long donated his entire year’s $1 million base salary to fund educational equality; and safety Malcolm Jenkins and ex-Eagles wide receiver Torrey Smith have been among the more outspoken and socially conscious players in the league, to name a few examples.

From my vantage point, a major reason these players have been so forceful and constructive in their advocacy of those without a voice is because they aren’t being leaned on by their employer. That’s unfortunately not the reality around the league: Houston owner Bob McNair last year compared protesting NFL players to “inmates running the prison;” Dolphins owner Stephen Ross said this spring “our players will be standing;” the Giants’ John Mara more softly — but very clearly — last month called standing for the anthem “the right thing to do.”

I, personally, always have stood for the national anthem, and I believe I always will. But I also am a white man in America whose reality is much different than blacks in the country. And I also see too much wrong in our country — especially in the executive and legislative branches of our federal government — to feel that I should be telling athletes what is “right” when they are peaceful protesting to try to help people.

Forget whether you agree or disagree with players’ decision to kneel. The problem is many of the owners, through the new anthem policy and their public comments, have clumsily echoed and fed the President’s callous and inflammatory misrepresentation of the players’ message and intent as some anti-military, anti-America initiative.

The new NFL policy that will fine teams if players don’t “stand and show respect for the flag and the Anthem” feeds the Trump falsehood that kneeling players are showing disrespect for American troops. In Roger Goodell’s statement that “on-field protests created a false perception among many that thousands of NFL players were unpatriotic,” the commissioner

meekly admitted that a fake narrative created by the President for political gain had become some new reality.

The more constructive alternative would be to stand with the players and work collaboratively with them. The owners did the direct opposite in developing this new policy, excluding the players from the conversation, most simply because they knew they would disagree with them — a lot like the President’s decision to disinvite any Eagles from the White House because they aren’t marching to his tyrannical drum beat.

It was recently revealed that last fall Lurie cautioned other owners: “We’ve got to be careful not to be baited by Trump or whomever else.” After the NFL announced its new anthem policy, while Lurie’s statement certainly didn’t condemn it, he meaningfully pointed out that “in this great country of ours, there are so many people who are hurting and marginalized, which is why I am proud of our players for continuously working to influence positive change.”

Then the Eagles flew high and smartly above Trump’s uninvite to the White House by not even mentioning the President in their statement: “It has been incredibly thrilling to celebrate our first Super Bowl Championship. Watching the entire Eagles community come together has been an inspiration. We are truly grateful for all of the support we have received and we are looking forward to continuing our preparations for the 2018 season.” I am not saying Lurie is beyond reproach. I am simply suggesting, at this most critical juncture for not just this league but also our country, that it would behoove the NFL’s copycats to replicate the Eagles’ culture, their players’ social consciousness and their awareness and actions in using their platform to try and make people’s lives better.

Because right now, as one of Jenkins’ poignant signs said in the locker room Wednesday, “You aren’t listening.”

AROUND THE LEAGUE

Terrell Owens’ childish decision to become the first living NFL player to not attend his Pro Football Hall of Fame induction is validation of why it took him three years to get into Canton instead of one. Sometimes, treating people poorly has consequences. T.O. didn’t get in immediately because of how his behavior during his career alienated voters, teams, players, you name them. Owens was great and deserves to be in the Hall of Fame, but one wonders if the Hall will tire of his act after a couple years and trade him, like so many of his NFL teams did. Maybe once T.O. is done doing situps in his driveway and comes up for air, he will realize this was a mistake. Not likely, though … So Odell Beckham Jr. attended the first three of the Giants’ 10 voluntary OTA practices, skipping the final two weeks and continuing his training in Los Angeles. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Beckham at this week’s three-day mandatory Giants minicamp in East Rutherford anyway (he can be fined $80,000 if he misses all three days), but if he does show up and gets cleared to practice medically, that could create some drama, because I strongly believe Beckham does not intend to step on a field full-go until he gets a contract extension. Bottom line: “Getcha popcorn ready,” as T.O. would say … 49ers legend Dwight Clark, who passed away at age 61 on Monday of Lou Gehrig’s disease, will be immortalized for his iconic on-field contributions and universally respected and loved as one of football’s good guys. “The Catch” in the 1981 NFC Championship Game will last forever, as will the memory of Clark, a star who by all accounts never acted like he was better than anyone else. A huge loss.