According to a report from The Athletic’s Jordan Rodrigue, who spoke with multiple league sources, the video created by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell in which Goodell condemned racism and the systemic oppression of black people and apologized on behalf of the league for not listening to black players sooner on the idea of peaceful protest, was created after Goodell met with several of the league’s own content creators, who were dissatisfied with the league’s response to the protests following the death of George Floyd.
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Those content creators, according to Rodrigue, worked directly with NFL players including Michael Thomas, Tyrann Mathieu, Patrick Mahomes, Saquon Barkley, Odell Beckham Jr., Deshaun Watson, and DeAndre Hopkins to create a video in which the players asked, among other things, “What if I was George Floyd?” More remarkably, those content creators reached out to the players and made the video without the league’s involvement.
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It was a remarkable turn of events for a number of reasons. For content creators working for the league to go outside of that purview and work directly with the players is one thing, but for those people to then bring the message back to Goodell, who has never shown more than a cursory interest in civil rights or the rights of the players to peacefully protest, is a rather big step. And it makes Goodell’s statement a bit more than the perfunctory exercise most people thought it was.
Players have been vocal throughout the recent protests in ways they never have been before to this degree and to this volume, and it’s quite possible that Goodell finally realized the ways in which the tables are turning.
It was also interesting that Goodell recorded this message after President Donald Trump sent out his usual invective on the subject of anybody protesting police brutality by refusing to stand for the national anthem.
“I am a big fan of Drew Brees,” Trump tweeted after Brees, the Saints’ starting quarterback, rescinded his previous beliefs that he could never respect or understand this kind of protest. “I think he’s truly one of the greatest quarterbacks, but he should not have taken back his original stance on honoring our magnificent American Flag. OLD GLORY is to be revered, cherished, and flown high…
“…We should be standing up straight and tall, ideally with a salute, or a hand on heart. There are other things you can protest, but not our Great American Flag – NO KNEELING!”
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For the Commissioner of a league that has seven different owners who contributed $1 million to Trump’s campaign, and effectively blackballed Colin Kaepernick after his peaceful protests, to come out against the whims of this particular President says a lot about how things have changed in a very short time.
It also says a lot that Brees sent a letter directly to Trump via Instagram in which he attempted to clarify his former beliefs, and his current understanding.
“Though my ongoing conversations with friends, teammates, and leaders in the black community, I realize that this not an issue about the American flag,” Brees wrote. “It never has been. We can no longer use the flag to turn people away or distract them from the real issues that face our black communities. We did this back in 2017, and regretfully I brought it back with my comments this week. We must stop talking about the flag and shift our attention to the real issues of systemic racial injustice, economic oppression, police brutality, and judicial & prison reform.
“We are at a critical juncture in our nation’s history! If not now, when?
“We as a white community need to listen and learn from the pain and suffering of our black communities. We must acknowledge the problems, identify the solutions, and then put this into action. The black community cannot do it alone. This will require all of us.”
One can only imagine the cascade of rage-tweets this will inspire from the President, but when you have two party-line stalwarts like Drew Brees and Roger Goodell understanding how things have changed, and the threat of Trump no longer holds the league in check as Trump would like… well, that’s more than just lip service. It’s not the immediate revolution some might like, but it is a couple of conservative standard-bearers switching their allegiances, at least publicly.
Those anonymous content creators, and their brilliant rebellion, brought about a change that nobody could have expected in Goodell’s case. And pressure from Brees’ own teammates to understand that by invalidating their rights to protest, he was actually invalidating their concerns about their own lives, caused another unexpected turnaround. Perhaps things would be different if Trump hadn’t completely botched the coronavirus response and his current poll numbers reflected that, but things are where they are, and the NFL doesn’t generally like to align itself with the unpopular candidate.
The NFL has a very long way to go with its own sense of equality. But these are valid steps in the right direction.