One day after Marcus Maye offered his thoughts on the shooting of Jacob Blake, more Jets players and coaches followed suit and addressed the incident after practice on Wednesday.
Wide receiver Jamison Crowder and safety Bradley McDougald both discussed the team’s reaction to Blake’s shooting in Kenosha, Wisconsin over the weekend. On Sunday, Blake, 29 was shot multiple times in the back by police in front of his children. He survived the shooting but is reportedly paralyzed from the waist down.
“You know, it was definitely an unfortunate event. I’ve seen it on social media like everybody else,” McDougald said. “And then we get to work yesterday and Adam Gase gives us an opportunity to talk about it as a team, but I feel like the real conversation was when we separated into individual rooms as far as defensive backs and quarterbacks and everybody’s position. Everybody had the opportunity to share their two cents and speak on it. Like I said, it was unfortunate, it was very unfortunate. My heart goes out to the family.”
McDougald went on to say that he and his teammates were “sick and tired of being sick and tired,” calling for actual change as opposed to recycled conversations about potential reform.
“It seems like all we can do right now is just talk and formulate ideas and guys are getting tired of talking,” he said. “Guys are getting tired of forming these ideas. Whatever solution we’re supposed to come up with as a community, or as these athletes with these platforms, but guys are just getting sick and tired of being sick and tired. Yesterday was the first time I’ve seen guys really as affected as they were. Some guys shed tears and it’s unfortunate.”
The shooting hit Crowder especially hard, as he felt he could relate to the position Blake found himself in before being shot. As a student at Duke, Crowder was pulled over multiple times by police and feared that he would be profiled.
“It’s definitely tough, man,” Crowder said. “Like I said, it’s not necessarily just seeing that, but like I said, it’s a reminder of me and my situation that I’ve been in, you know what I’m saying?” Crowder said. “I was in college, trying to be a student-athlete, doing the right things and to be stereotyped and to be targeted because of the car I was driving, it’s definitely hurtful.”
Two Jets running backs joined the conversation on Twitter Thursday. Le’Veon Bell wrote, “we’ve been protecting the shield…it’s time for the shield to protect us.” Rookie La’Mical Perine, meanwhile, tweeted, “Without a Helmet I’m A Target …”
Assistant head coach and linebackers coach Frank Bush, one of seven black coaches on New York’s coaching staff, also offered his thoughts on the shooting Wednesday. The Jets are in the “infant stages” of formulating their action plan for social justice, but Bush is pleased with how the organization has approached the situation.
“When you look at racism and justice and whatnot, it’s pervasive,” Bush said. “I mean there’s no particular kind of place we can go to kind of end it. There’s no spot to go on the map or any country to say, ‘Oh, go here and we can fix it here.’ It’s pervasive, it’s like trying to plug a bunch of holes. Fortunately, I’m in a situation where ownership gets it. We have team talks about it all the time. The head coach gets it, so they’ve been out in front of it in the sense of having team meetings and trying to get players to come up with an action plan.”
It remains to be seen whether or not kneeling during the national anthem will be part of New York’s social justice action plan. Maye said on Tuesday that “a few guys have certain plans,” and Gase has stated that he would support his players if they kneeled during the anthem. Regardless, it is clear that the Jets are not going to sit on the sideline and idly watch as police brutality and racial and social injustices run rampant in America.
They have had enough of doing that.
“It’s just definitely something that I don’t want — and a lot of my brothers in the locker room — swept under the rug,” McDougald said. “This is not just a one-day topic or when it happens, we need to talk about it. This is something real in our community that we’re dealing with. And I’m going to deal with it for the rest of my life and my kids are going to deal with it. When we put street clothes on, when we walk out these doors, it’s real.”