This coming Sunday evening, the Dallas Cowboys will begin their NFL season against the Los Angeles Rams. Both teams will play for 60 minutes of play, possibly with touchdowns and / or field goals. Rams quarterback Jared Goff will try to justify his monster deal, while Dallas quarterback Dak Prescott will try to get into it. There will be passes and runs, there will be tack calls, and with the exception of the tie, no one will win and no one will lose.
I present to you all these clear facts to remind you that this weekend’s NFL games will not be three hours of protest. No flags will be burned in midfield. No players will be able to take signs as they run their routes.
There Will If there is opposition, one way or another. And, as the NBA showed us a few weeks ago, there is no guarantee that the games will take over on their own – although it is almost certain that they will. But when the games actually start, you’ll be able to watch NFL football.… That is, if you really want to do this.
On Monday night, the president’s son, Eric Trump, responded to a report on Twitter on Friday that the Dallas Cowboys had received a “green light” to protest the team’s ownership, according to defensive lineman Tyrone Crawford. The Green Light, Crawford said, gives the Cowboys a room “yet it feels like we feel, express how we feel and say what needs to be said. It’s just trying to find out what’s going to get booming, it’s not like people make a look at a time and kind of like, ‘Oh, that’s great, the Cowboys did it,’ then swipe. “
Eric Trump responded by calling football “dead.”
Trump tweeted, “Football Football is officially dead – so much for the American game.” “Goodbye NFL … I’m gone.”
Granted, Twitter bears little resemblance to real life. On Twitter, outrage is both a cover charge you pay and a gift of the part you take with you. That said, Eric Trump has four million followers, and if each of them carries a tincture of aggression into the world … well, you can see where he leads.
Along similar lines, it’s important to note: Eric Trump has been on Twitter since May 2009. In those 11 plus years, he Tweeted exactly about the NFL twice Before Sunday, simply link to the 2017 articles about kneeling both times. That is Just tweeted twice about “football football”, Neither as a clear fan.
Eric Trump may well be a rabid giant or a patriot or a cowboy fan. He may have sent thousands of NFL-related tweets. He also – here’s a wild idea – lives a life outside of Twitter that he doesn’t feel compelled to share on social media.
But what he tweeted here, the days before the NFL season begins, is nothing more than an attempt to inflame for his own sake. To see what happens next is the rhetorical equivalent of throwing fireworks, and for that, now, there is a method of communication choice, giving everyone an opinion. (Yes, it includes the media, and yes, it does include this article. I’m aware of the irony.)
The NFL will begin its first official haunting move towards political activism, you will see a lot of this in the next few days. Critics will rush to declare the league as “awake”, announcing that ratings will surely drop as the waves of true Americans move away from the league. The blowback will follow, as the other side of the wing weighs in with its own cherry picked version of the scene. The facts will be denied, the emotions will be busy. The aggression will create itself.
Outrage is cheap heat. Outrage burns hot and fast, does zero good for someone and usually stops all that annoys most everyone. You would think that right now we have personal expressions in the game of football – and that is more annoying than personal opinions about personal expressions, but if we hadn’t learned anything else about America in 2020, we would have learned that while fixing on the pebbles of our shoes. We have an infinite ability to ignore the fire around us.
Opposing sports puts Americans at odds with their status. It is a general mental impulse to believe that everything that comes after you first become self-aware is, by definition, downgraded. If you grew up in the ’60s, the Beatles and the Stones were followed by music. If you grew up in the 80s, Michael Jordan is the Got, even if LeBron wins the rings in every franchise. And if you grew up in a time where politics usually stays below the level of the game, you would wonder why they just can’t play games and protest on their own time.
This is a perfectly reasonable defense for those who want to watch the game without thinking about the chaotic worries of life. Nice! There is nothing wrong with that! In fact, I’m sure Virtually every American Would love to watch a ballgame without feelings of guilt or frustration or frustration or despair or loss aggression. We can all use a real escape right now.
This is not how life, or sports, is working in 2020. Being hypersensitive means we are All Starting to see that a lot of people thought that between the lines say, say, politics and sports really never existed.
If you’re standing for the national anthem in a game, if you’re happy for a non-white athlete, if you’re reunited with a military family, if you’re thrilled at a fighter jet flyover, if you’re in a stadium provided with taxpayer dollars Participated in a game, guess what: you’re already immersed in the chaotic intersection of politics and sports. Opposition is a new branch of the same river that flows forever through sports.
As protests unfold this weekend and going forward, every fan faces a choice.
Some will see opposition and feel sympathy.
Some will simply not see.
Some will not see, and will loudly declare that they are not watching.
In some Crawford’s words, “Swipe bye,” – like many cars and beer commercials will wash out the protest messages on them.
Some will wonder what are the next, more step-by-step steps for change, other than kneeling.
Some people ask themselves why the protests make them more upset than the protest events.
And, yes, some opponents will use it as an easy way to fire their supporters and advance political issues.
Like the Patriots reloading and winning, talking big like the Cowboys and falling short, the opposition is the certainty of this NFL season. We know this, and so we really only have three options: focus on opposition, focus on aggression, or focus on sports. Your choice.
Enjoy Week 1 each. It will be memorable, one way or another.
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Jay Busby is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Follow him on Twitter at @jaybusbee or contact him at [email protected] with tips and story ideas.
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