Houston Texans head coach Bill O’Brien has said that ‘anything is possible’ regarding NFL players refusing to play games in 2020.
Houston Texans coach and general manager Bill O’Brien is not ruling out the possibility of NFL players staging walkouts during the NFL regular season.
According to Aaron Wilson of the Houston Chronicle, O’Brien is keeping an open mind when it comes to the chance that NFL players could walk out of games as the entire NBA, the NHL, and some of Major League Baseball did on Thursday and Friday.
“I would say anything is possible,” O’Brien told reporters on Saturday during his meeting with the Houston media. “Just speaking for the Houston Texans, I’m really proud of these guys that are on our team. We have a lot of really good veteran guys that are really passionate about football, really passionate about what’s going on in the world.”
O’Brien’s words echo those of Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll, who said earlier this week that, yes, “Anything is possible” regarding player walkouts.
“I mentioned to the players, this the season of protest. So we’ll handle ourselves as we do,” Carroll said Wednesday. “But this is a protest that doesn’t have an end to it until all the problems go away, and we solve issues and stuff. So we’re going to do our part and continue to work to stay actively involved and continue to stay in touch with the situations that are going on by staying on the topics, just in hopes that we can be there to help and support when we can and have influence where we can. The whole Black Lives Matter thing couldn’t be more obvious how true this whole movement is, and how much focus and change needs to come. It’s just so clear. I hope we can do something to help.
“The one thing we’re not, is we’re not numb to it. We’re in tune, the guys are feeling it, it’s topical, and we know that we have to do something. Like everybody that cares on the right side of this whole issue, you worry that you can’t do enough, you worry that you can’t be effective enough to create the change that we need. So we’ll continue to stay on it and continue to talk and do what we can.”
The Texans’ first scrimmage at NRG Stadium took place during the first night of walkouts. While the team had a discussion earlier that day about the circumstancing plaguing the country, most notably the turmoil in Kenosha, Wisconsin, stemming from the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man, in the back.
“The thing that really strikes me as a coach is you’re always in a rush you want to make sure everything is going well you’re thinking about the next play, the next three plays from now, but these players they’re not in a rush,” said O’Brien. “Our players are really thoughtful. They want to think about things. They don’t want to rush to make any decisions on anything. It’s been really enlightening to me.”
For NFL players to have a walkout would be impactful as there are only 16 such games throughout the entire season. If NFL players were to have a walkout during sweeps for television, it would be even more of a hit than the NBA and NHL playoff games being postponed.
With the regular season just around the corner, how likely is it that the NFL will follow other leagues and cancel games over civil rights?
The NFL’s decision to cancel the preseason due to COVID-related health concerns was the right move to make, but it also saved the league from the possibility that, as has happened in the NBA, WNBA, and in Major League Baseball, players would make the decision to opt out of playing games because they feel their voices need to be heard as they relate to civil rights in general, and police brutality against people of color specifically.
Especially in the preseason, the odds of star players taking a knee, so to speak, would have been fairly high. In fact, Russell Wilson of the Seahawks said flat-out on Friday morning during an appearance on Seattle’s ESPN Radio station that if the Seahawks had a game this week, it wouldn’t happen.
Russell Wilson tells @710ESPNSeattle if #Seahawks had a game this week they would not have played it. Team is leaning in again on #BlackLivesMatter discussing right now what to do. Possibility exists they might boycott an NFL game. "We need change. Now." https://t.co/Mi92DQmHJu
Asked by 710 ESPN’s radio’s “Danny and Gallant” morning co-host Paul Gallant if the Seahawks had a game this week would they have joined boycotting teams from the NBA, Major League Baseball, the WNBA, the NHL and Major League Soccer and refused to play the game, Wilson said: “Yeah. For sure.”
“I think the world is truly seeing the ugliness of society, at times,” Wilson continued. “I think what’s truly disappointing is just know that we, as athletes, try to make a difference, and sometimes people don’t want to listen and don’t want to recognize that could have been us. That could be us. I think that’s a real reality.”
“So I think for us, as a team, for the Seahawks, we are definitely discussing, what do we do next? How do we make a change? How do we cause movement and how do we make a difference? We are in the midst of all that right now.
“We don’t have weeks, and we don’t have months, we don’t have years to change it. We’ve got to all do it together. And we’ve got to do it now. We need change now. We need people to make a difference now.”
This two days after Pete Carroll, Wilson’s head coach, said that “anything is possible” when it comes to NFL players refusing to play when the regular season does get underway.
“I mentioned to the players, this the season of protest,” Carroll said. “So we’ll handle ourselves as we do. But this is a protest that doesn’t have an end to it until all the problems go away, and we solve issues and stuff. So we’re going to do our part and continue to work to stay actively involved and continue to stay in touch with the situations that are going on by staying on the topics, just in hopes that we can be there to help and support when we can and have influence where we can. The whole Black Lives Matter thing couldn’t be more obvious how true this whole movement is, and how much focus and change needs to come. It’s just so clear. I hope we can do something to help.
“The one thing we’re not, is we’re not numb to it. We’re in tune, the guys are feeling it, it’s topical, and we know that we have to do something. Like everybody that cares on the right side of this whole issue, you worry that you can’t do enough, you worry that you can’t be effective enough to create the change that we need. So we’ll continue to stay on it and continue to talk and do what we can.”
The Seahawks are not the only team throwing this idea around. Not by a long shot.
Cardinals DT Corey Peters said the team has discussed “a variety of ways protest” with some being more “extreme” than others.
Peters said that boycotting Week 1 against the 49ers has been discussed.
On Friday, Jim Trotter of the NFL Network weighed in on that particular subject.
NFL owners should be careful. A few prominent Black players are telling me they want to sit out a game to make their feelings felt & force change/action. They are tired, frustrated and emotional. It’s only a few at this point, but sparks become flames & flames become infernos.
“Back in 2018, the league and the Players Association began a series of discussions about the change to the anthem policy [whether players would be allowed to kneel for the National Anthem before games], and what I was told by a union source last night is that players left that meeting feeling that some owners had pledged to use their ‘political influence’ to make real change,” Trotter said Friday on the NFL Network. “So, when people ask, ‘What do players want?” Obviously, they want to end the killing of unarmed Black [people] by police officers, but how do you do that? Some of that is through legislative change.
“So, they are looking for owners to step up and be a part of this fight. We have not seen owners out front on this issue with their players. And they are going to have to step out if they want some sort of cohesion to make positive change. We’ve not heard it.”
What do players want? For many I've spoken with, the end game is as simple as ending police killings of unarmed Blacks – and convicting those who do so. More immediate, they'd like action, not talk, from those with the access and influence to create change: team owners. 👇🏾 pic.twitter.com/4Htu3Ns11J
On Thursday, the Ravens released a team statement that was perhaps the most pointed and specific released by any sports team to date regarding civil and voting rights. The following action items were included:
Arrest and charge the police officers responsible for Breonna Taylor’s killing and the shooting of Jacob Blake.
Demand that Senator Mitch McConnell bring the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2020 to the Senate floor for vote.
End qualified immunity; require body cameras; ban chokeholds and no-knock warrants; hold police accountable in court; establish a framework to prohibit racial profiling at federal, state, and local levels
Support state- and federally-mandated CALEA Accreditation and national standards of care in policing.
Encourage everyone to engage in the political process by registering to vote on both the local and national level. (www.risetovote.turbovote.org.)
Demand prison sentencing reform that is fair and equitable.
Encourage every citizen to act with respect and compliance when engaging with the police. If you feel there has been an abuse of power, we encourage you to contact your police department’s internal affairs unit. (For Baltimore City, dial 410-396-2300.)
That statement doesn’t see the light of day without the approval of team owner Steve Bisciotti, and while that’s commendable — as is Bisciotti’s commitment to donate $1 million to social justice initiatives in Baltimore — it may behoove Bisciotti and other team owners to be more relatably specific on these matters.
“We have a powerful platform – and a responsibility – to help eliminate injustices that are prevalent in our communities,” Biscoitti stated earlier this month. “For far too long, people of color have been underserved by a system that should protect, rather than harm. Our entire organization, including players past and present, is fully committed to creating social justice reform. We will continue to seek out opportunities that support, encourage and defend those who are most in need.”
Creating reform with statements is one thing. Getting yourself out there and using your face and voice and platform to help enact that change is another — and as Trotter said, team owners really haven’t done that. The only team owner that has been front and center on any related matter is Jerry Jones, who is still trying to create some sort of compromise regarding the league’s anthem policy. It’s about as tone-deaf a position as one could inhabit at this point, but that’s where we are.
Jones recently stated that it was important for the NFL to “put the show on” with a full schedule despite COVID complications.
“Our country really does place football,” Jones offered, “whether it’s misplaced or not, at a very high level. Consequently, it is important. I think it is important individually, but I think it’s important in the country. I know the debate going on. I can easily see how X percent of the people would be for: it’s just not worth the kinds of effort, risk, whatever, that’s going to go on. I believe it is. The NFL can be an exciting- when I say exciting, it can be an inspirational- part of how we address COVID, not only the remainder of this year, but as we go into ’21. So it’s a big enough deal for me to look at cost in every way, and obviously, cost usually is associated with financial, but it’s easy for me to justify for the long-term of interest in football and the long-term thing that competitive sports bring to the table and what it can bring to the country. It’s worth it to make the effort for us to have a complete season, and I want to do it in front of our fans.”
It’s not a surprise that a team owner would want to race past any ancillary concerns to have a full season. The revenue lost in any alternative would be severe, and given the Cowboys’ current valuation of $6.4 billion, Jones has proven that he knows how to make a dollar and a cent, to quote Floyd Gondolli, in this bidnuss.
When players see owners being more pronounced in their statements and their visibility in their desire for a full season than they are for the seemingly innocuous ideal that people should not have to worry about heading out into a war zone every time they leave their homes because their skin is a certain color, that may have those players wondering how they can best make those owners understand how the priorities have shifted in recent months.
And has happened throughout league history, as well as through American history, the players will eventually realize that the best place to strike is right in the pocketbooks of the people who make policy.
So, what are the odds that players will band together and take the fight off the field? I would say that with every day in which there are more relatively empty statements and fewer owners and executives putting their names on the line and using their influence for the public good, that possibility looms ever larger.
Buckle up, folks. Multiple teams have already cancelled practices and scrimmages to discuss the need for change, and it’s an easy step to the games being impacted, as well.
Athletes in most major sports have reacted to continued police brutality by refusing to play. The NFL could be next.
The Wednesday decision by NBA, WNBA, and Major League Baseball players to refuse to play their games in the wake of the Jacob Blake shooting (as it stands as the most recent example of police brutality against people of color) has to have the NFL worried as its regular season is just two weeks away. The league has done its best to navigate the complications of a pandemic, but the specter of player-led cancellations of games is now on the table, and it’s not likely to go away anytime soon. NFL players have already intimated that it’s about more than the games right now.
FED UP. Ain’t enough money in world to keep overlooking true issues that effect the mind body & soul of what we do. We cannot be happy for self when our communities are suffering & innocent folk are dying.. since George Floyd, there have been at least 20 other police shootings. https://t.co/UmzuuWP7us
Those who have been doing the work understand that it’s about the system in place. Yes, we want justice in these cases but we also need systemic change.
I do not have the words to meet the depths of my frustration & sadness. But, I do know that the senseless killings & shootings of Black Americans by the police and vigilantes has to stop. These are human rights violations. My children deserve better. We all deserve better.
Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll, who has long been on the vanguard of the idea that his players have legitimate concerns in this regard, said Wednesday that it’s easy to imagine what’s happened in other sports could happen in the NFL.
“You know, anything is possible,” Carroll said Wednesday afternoon. “I mentioned to the players, this the season of protest. So we’ll handle ourselves as we do. But this is a protest that doesn’t have an end to it until all the problems go away, and we solve issues and stuff. So we’re going to do our part and continue to work to stay actively involved and continue to stay in touch with the situations that are going on by staying on the topics, just in hopes that we can be there to help and support when we can and have influence where we can. The whole Black Lives Matter thing couldn’t be more obvious how true this whole movement is, and how much focus and change needs to come. It’s just so clear. I hope we can do something to help.
“The one thing we’re not, is we’re not numb to it. We’re in tune, the guys are feeling it, it’s topical, and we know that we have to do something. Like everybody that cares on the right side of this whole issue, you worry that you can’t do enough, you worry that you can’t be effective enough to create the change that we need. So we’ll continue to stay on it and continue to talk and do what we can.”
"This is a protest that doesn't have an end to it until all the problems go away."
On Tuesday, Carroll also set up a meeting between his players and New Jersey senator Cory Booker to further discuss these issues.
“We had a really nice visit last night with Cory Booker, he visited with our team, and he helped us with a number of areas just trying to find the understanding and the potential for the change, and the thinking that’s so important for us to stay with it,” Carroll said. “He emphasized to us that everybody has a voice now, everybody can speak out and the guys can have an effect on the people who follow them and watch them. Everybody has social media, every one of our guys has a big following, to some extent, and so they have people that care what they think about. And so he urged us to really think about what we want to say to those people, and know that we do have the power to have effect. It was really, really a big evening for us, and there will be more to come.”
Carroll isn’t just whistling Dixie here — when I spoke to him in June about the ability of NFL players to speak their truths to power, he was as passionate and specific about the subject as any NFL coach has ever been.
“I don’t think players have been respected for what they have brought to our society,” Carroll told me. “They’ve brought us the game, and an allegiance to our areas, and what we love and stand for and all of that, and they have risked so much to do that. Without them, we have nothing, Over the course of time, our players have become more versed, and more prepared to have so much to offer as we move forward. Their vision and their connection to what’s going on culturally and socially is at the essence of what’s going on right now.
“So, we should be listening to them. And I always have – I’ve always felt like that. This isn’t new. But it’s more important now than ever. Because there are a lot of white guys who don’t know what they need to know, right? And there’s a lot to be learned. There’s a lot to understand. Our history has not worked properly for us to understand the real truth and reality of what’s going on in the world of minority groups – people who deserve the same love and consideration that everybody does. So, hopefully, through listening and positioning our players… they’ve got to find their voices too, so their voices can be constructive and productive. They want to, and they will, if we give them a chance.
“It’s challenging for leadership to give the voice to the people. It’s supposed to be that way in our society, but it’s challenging, and most of the people on top try to control it. They try to manage it so they get what they want out of it. That’s not what I’m seeing here. I think it will work to our betterment if our players do have the voice, and they do have the leadership opportunities, and we follow along with them, they’re going to help us where we need to go. Particularly now.
“75% of our league is Black players. And they have the wisdom it’s necessary for us to learn from. Without an understanding of their story, we don’t understand what’s going on in the world. I’m talking about white people [not understanding]. We have to position them [Black players] to speak and teach us.”
The dams are bursting in this regard. More than ever, athletes are realizing that their value on the diamond, and on the court, and on the gridiron, means that they can come together and make resonating statements that echo far beyond the sports they play.
There’s only been one player boycott of a game in pro football history beyond organized player strikes — when Black American Football League players refused to play in the 1964 All-Star game unless the game was moved out of New Orleans, where the players experienced severe racist invective. The stakes aren’t any higher now — back then, police brutality was just as much or more of a problem as it is now. But police brutality has been uncovered far more frequently, and athletes have aligned themselves as never before to the idea that they can use their platforms to hopefully enact changes that desperately need to be made.
Could that include the cancellation of games in the NFL’s regular season? As Carroll said, anything is possible. At certain times, it’s required to take a step back and understand that there are more important things than sports.
The NBA”s decision to cancel Wednesday’s game due to player boycotts have some wondering if it could happen in pro football. It already has.
With so many players, coaches, and teamsspeaking out about police violence in the wake of Kenosha, Wisconsin police shooting Jacob Blake, a Black man, several times in the back on Sunday — and with the Milwaukee Bucks choosing to boycott Game 5 of their NBA playoff series against the Orlando Magic (followed by the announcement that all of Wednesday’s games would be cancelled due to boycott), it leads one to wonder if the increased public civil rights awareness of seemingly everyone in the NFL might lead to pro football boycotts once the regular season actually gets rolling on September 10.
There’s no word of that possibility at this time, but there has been a professional football boycott before — and for racial reasons. Which means it could happen again.
FED UP. Ain’t enough money in world to keep overlooking true issues that effect the mind body & soul of what we do. We cannot be happy for self when our communities are suffering & innocent folk are dying.. since George Floyd, there have been at least 20 other police shootings. https://t.co/UmzuuWP7us
Six months after President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the American Football League was set to play its All-Star game on January 16, 1965 at Tulane Stadium in New Orleans. This was 10 days after the stadium hosted the first completely integrated Sugar Bowl game without incident. But as the AFL players were to find out, incidents abounded upon their arrival.
“They told us, bring your wife and kids,” Raiders running back Clem Daniels recalled. “There will also be a golf tournament. It sounded like a big picnic.”
It really wasn’t. Black players found it nearly impossible to find public transportation, and restaurants were problematic at best.
“In the restaurants, the patriots didn’t want us to sit anywhere near them,” said Bills tight end Ernie Warlick in the NFL Films documentary, “Full Color Football.” “We’d hang up our coats, and they’d say, ‘Hey—don’t put your coats next to mine!’”
“I checked in, and I heard in the background, somebody asked a question: ‘Was that [defensive lineman] Ernie Ladd?’ And another guy in the background said, ‘No, Ernie Ladd’s a bigger [n-word] than that. That Ladd is a big [n-word],” recalled Chargers defensive lineman Earl Faison.
Chiefs running back Abner Haynes: “I get on the elevator to go to my room, and the elevator operator says, ‘You monkeys get in the back, so everybody can get in!’ I said, ‘You’re an elevator operator, and I’m a monkey?’
Warlick: “We went out to get a taxi. Taxis were lined up out in front of the hotel. [Bills running back] Cookie Gilchrist, one of our players, said, ‘Hey—we want a taxi.’ And the guy says ‘We gotta call y’all a colored cab.’ And Cookie says, ‘I don’t care what color the cab is; I just want a taxi! Why can’t we ride in one of these?’”
Eventually, several players decided to go to the French Quarter, where things escalated further.
“There’s a greeter standing outside saying, ‘Come in here, come in here.’ We get to another door, we get ready to go in, this little guy standing there pulls out a gun. ‘You are not coming in here. You [n-words] are not coming in here.’”
The look of hurt on Faison’s face, four decades later, tells the story even more graphically than his words do. Faison said that Ladd lunged at the man holding the gun, and the man aimed the gun at Ladd’s nose, saying, “I will pull the trigger.”
Ladd told Faison that he wasn’t going to play a game in New Orleans under any conditions, and the Black players on both the East and West teams got together to discuss a boycott. When the players were set to board the bus for practice that morning, Hall of Fame offensive tackle recalls the difference in attendance.
“The bus was like a third empty. And the coach said, ‘Where is everybody?’ Somebody said, ‘None of the Black players are here. They’re all in a meeting.’”
Per Neil Graves of The Undefeated, Mix tried to talk to the black players and convince them to reverse their decision, but they would not be moved.
“Look, we know we aren’t going to change these people,” Raiders receiver Art Powell told Mix. “But neither are they going to change us. We must act as our conscience dictates.” And to Mix’s contention that this boycott would leave the players as bad examples for black people everywhere who couldn’t just leave a situation when things got tough… well, Powell had an answer for that, too.
“I suppose it would be better to stay here and by doing so imply that we accept such treatment for ourselves and our people?” Powell said. “Do you want us to condone it?”
The AFL had several options. They could play the game without their black players. They could try to force the black players to play. They could move the game to a more hospitable environment. Or, they could cancel the game altogether. To the league’s credit, and very much against the prevailing sentiment of the time, which gave players (especially black players) very little voice in anything important in any sport, the league moved the game to Houston’s Jeppesen Stadium and out of New Orleans altogether.
Jan 16, 1965; Houston, TX, USA; FILE PHOTO; Boston Patriots quarterback Babe Parilli (15) throws the ball while San Diego Chargers tackle Ernie Ladd (77) applies pressure 1965 AFL All Star Game at Jeppesen Stadium. (Dick Raphael-USA TODAY Sports)
After the game was moved, New Orleans mayor Victor Schiro told the Associated Press that AFL Commissioner Joe Foss “acted hastily,” and that the players who walked out did “themselves and their race a disservice by precipitous action.”
“If these men would play football only in cities where everybody loved them, they’d all be out of a job today. Their reaction will only aggravate the very condition they are seeking, in time, to eliminate.”
Dixon questioned “the wisdom of the peremptory action with they took to redress these alleged grievances.”
The city tried to appease the players by sending Ernest Morial, the NAACP field secretary for New Orleans, to try and negotiate a peace.
“I met with the players and asked them not to leave immediately, but to give us 24 hours to see if the matter could be worked out to the satisfaction of the entire community,” Morial, who eventually became New Orleans’ first black mayor, told The Undefeated. “[But] in the final analysis, it was their decision.”
According to Dixon, Morial told them that “militant action such as they were contemplating would not only damage this city, but would greatly retard efforts by man of goodwill, of both races, to achieve harmony in the most difficult problem of our times.”
“Our experience thus far with integrated football, basketball and even track meets had been exceptionally good,” Dixon continued in that AP article. “We are a very cosmopolitan and tolerant city, but we are also a Southern city, and there are times when personal reaction is unpredictable.
“It seems to me that the players who walked out on us should have rolled with the punch. Almost all of them are educated college men, who must be aware than you cannot change human beings overnight.”
Which is why sometimes, you need to force the thought of change with decisive action.
“It didn’t get the publicity I think it should have,” Patriots defensive lineman Houston Antwine said of the boycott in the book, Going Long. “We didn’t feel it was properly addressed. Back in Boston, there was one little blip in the paper showing me with my bag leaving the hotel. That was basically it. The hostility and the treatment we received was never really publicized.”
Antwine had a point. The 1965 AFL boycott wasn’t talked about as much as it should have been, and it certainly hasn’t been discussed as much as future examples of resistance were. But for the times, and in a relatively new league, it was a very gutsy decision to make for players who had been treated like equals for two reasons—enlightened men like Sid Gillman, Al Davis, and Hank Stram, and the league’s realization that were it to succeed, it would have to do away with old quotas and biases and accept all players based on pure talent. Given half a decade of such progress, it’s easy to see why the environment presented to those players seemed impossible to take under any circumstances.
Sadly, the need for this kind of action hasn’t changed in the decades since.
