OPINION:
Roger Goodell, NFL commissioner, has sparked some players’ union backlash by announcing those who want to bend knees during this season’s game-time playing of the national anthem may do so — but from the locker room, not the field.
But really, Goodell got it right. Finally.
After months of dithering and waffling and walking squishy and slow on the whole players’ kneeling predicament, after months of trying to walk the politically correct line and calm all the various pro-Colin Kaepernick factions — and while ticking off the fans to no good or profitable end, no less — Goodell finally came out with a firm policy.
“The [32-club] membership … believes that all team and league personnel on the field shall stand and show respect for the flag and the anthem, the Game Operations Manual will be revised to remove the requirement that all players be on the field for the anthem, [and] personnel who choose not to stand for the anthem may stay in the locker room or in a similar location off the field until after the anthem has been performed,” his statement reads.
Meanwhile, those on-field players who don’t abide the standing rule would subject their team to fines and further discipline.
Moreover, there’s this little addition, as explained by Sports Illustrated: “[T]he league will allow for teams to set their own workplace rules [to carry out the policy], putting player-specific sanctions in the hands of each club. This, of course, will keep the league away from what could be a raft of grievances.”
Finally.
After two years of politicization, discussion of racism among police, the Black Lives Matter movement and whether or not America’s guiding governing documents are inherently discriminatory and should be trashed, perhaps football season this time around will be about, well, football.
The NFLPA, the union for the players led by Eric Winston and DeMaurice Smith, isn’t happy, and is vowing challenge. But that’s to be expected.
Winston and Smith have both fought long and hard for the rights to protest on the field, even lashing out against President Trump for comments he made in 2017 about the brouhaha.
“[If fans] leave the stadium” during the kneelings, Trump said in September, “I guarantee, things will stop.” He then said that NFL owners ought to react to kneeling players by saying, “Get that son of a b—— off the field right now, he’s fired. He’s fired.”
Shortly after, both Winston and Smith tweeted angry responses.
“The comments made [by Trump] were a slap in the face to the civil rights heroes of the past and present,” Winston wrote.
And from Smith: “This union … will never back down when it comes to protecting the constitutional rights of our players as citizens as well as their safety as men.”
But the thing is: Football players aren’t assembling in the streets to exercise their First Amendment citizen rights to protest and speak freely and petition about grievances.
They’re privately paid and employed athletes, working — in essence — for fans. And if one of those fans, paying a too-high charge for a perhaps once-in-a-lifetime chance to attend an actual stadium game, were to return to work the next day and decide, hey, I’m feeling a bit angry about, say, this recent school shooting and rather than sit at my desk, I’m going to march around my office holding this “Repeal the Second Amendment” sign — what would be the result?
Yes. As Trump would say: You’re fired.
Well, the football field is to players what business offices are to fans. You just can’t expect the bosses to sit back and quietly allow for political disruptions when the time clock’s ticking.
That Goodell finally got this right and put into policy what fans have wanted all along is a sigh of relief. Nobody goes to games to see players take a political stand. Nobody takes their kids to stadiums to see pictures of cops as pigs on player socks. The ticket sales, leading to advertising dollars, come from those who want to see the game played. It’s good news to see this season getting back to that very basic premise.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter @ckchumley.
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