Thoughts on The New NFL National Anthem Rules

This will be by far my most important blog yet. Talking about the newly implemented National Anthem rules made by the NFL just a few days ago. This blog is going to be straight from the head. No data, no stats, no numbers, just stated facts mixed with my own pure opinion on this matter. You have the choice to agree or disagree with my position on this matter. If you want to further discuss this leave comments on my Facebook page APW Sports, Twitter page @APWSports, & Instagram page @APWSports. Let’s dive into it.

            The new policy states the following:

1.     All team & league personnel on the field shall stand and show respect for the flag & the Anthem.

2.     The Game Operations Manual will be revised to remove the requirement that all players be on the field for the Anthem.

3.     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.

4.     A club will be fined by the League if its personnel are on the field and do not stand and show respect for the flag & Anthem.

5.     Each club may develop its own work rules, consistent with the above principles, regarding personnel who do not stand and show respect for the flag and the Anthem.

6.     The commissioner will impose appropriate discipline on league personnel who do not stand and show respect for the flag and Anthem.

Here’s my opinion on the whole matter. I don’t agree with ANY of the rules implemented by the NFL. Here are my reasons why:

1.     It only escalates the situation and doesn’t solve anything

These new rules will only elevate the conversation more & create more headlines that the NFL thought they’d be done with creating these new rules. These rules I feel will only lead to more players protesting (which personally I’m fine with) because they won’t agree to the rules at all.

2.     This violates the players Freedom of Speech 1^st Amendment Rights.

This rule is meant to silence the players who have something to say about the racial injustices going on in this country. This rule is meant to take away their platform during the Anthem and spreading their message pertaining to racial injustice.

3.     The NFL is only trying to save face & it sends a message that they don’t care about the issues.

The NFL has partnerships with the U.S. Military and want to keep their partnership intact & keep generation income they obtain from the partnerships. They have many sponsors and a lot of their sponsors may have pulled out of the league didn’t implement a policy preventing the teams personnel from protesting during the Anthem. A lot of viewers have tuned away from the games due to the protests and want that audience back, so they can continue to prosper.

4.     This says the NFL doesn’t stand by their players.

By implementing this policy, the league is sending a direct message that they don’t stand by their players. 31 out of 32 team owners agreed to this new policy. (49ers are the one team that voted against it). Kudos to the 49ers by the way.

5.     Clearly, the message of the protest has been lost.

The NFL has lost sight of the message spread by the protest. It has never been about the military or the National Anthem itself. Players are using the platform to display their displeasure of the racial inequalities & police brutalities that have taken place in this country for many of years.

6.     It takes away from the reasons the protest started in the very first place.

The policy brings more attention to the NFL stopping the protest versus discussing what we can do to fix the issues that Colin Kaepernick started the protest in the very beginning. Racial Inequalities & Police Brutality. Instead of discussing the issues at hand, its has turned to stopping the protests.

This policy makes me lose a lot of respect for the NFL. It’s just showing a false sense of patriotism. I’m a proud African-American male & I stand with any message that just wants to see equality & fair treatment in this country. Just because a player kneels for the anthem doesn’t mean they don’t love the country they live in & despise it. It just sends a message that there are issues in this country that really haven’t been brought to the forefront & they want to use their professional athlete platform to display their message. If I were in the NFL & had a roster spot, I would still protest the anthem to continue the discussion about the issues. I wouldn’t care about the team getting fined because of it either. In my opinion they should’ve been fined for creating this insane policy in the first place.

THIS POLICY SUCKS.

Should We Truly Use Championships In Individual Player Debates?

There is a ton of debates in all sports period about who is the GOAT in each of the major pro leagues. In the NBA it’s MJ vs LeBron. In the NFL particularly at the QB position it’s Montana vs. Brady. In the MLB it’s Babe Ruth vs. Hank Aaron. A topic that usually comes up in these debates is “How many rings does he have?”. Should rings come up in the discussion?

My answer to that question is NO it shouldn’t come up in a debate and I’ll explain why. I feel that rings shouldn’t define a player’s individual greatness. I feel as a society we really lose track of the true debate and bring championships into the debate. The debate is who is the better INDIVIDUAL and not who is better because their team won more. I feel that we really lose track that a championship is a TEAM accomplishment and a player can’t win a ring on their own. In the player debate, team success is weighed too heavily in a debate knowing it truly takes a great player and the whole around them are succeeding in their role to win a championship in any TEAM sport.

In the NBA I feel that debate is at it’s worst. The first thing brought up in an NBA debate about who’s the greatest player is championships and I feel its very discrediting. Society typically leaves out players like John Stockton, Karl Malone, Reggie Miller, Charles Barkley, & Patrick Ewing based off the simple fact that they finished their legendary NBA careers without having won an NBA Championship. Is it at fault of them because they’re not great players? Not one bit. It’s for the simple fact that the parts around them weren’t enough to propel those teams to become champions. Whether it was the players around them, coaching staffs, or front office, or the players not being one cohesive unit, it takes so many factors outside of their individual greatness to win titles. Another part of the debate that gets under my skin is when Shaquille O’Neal & Charles Barkley have their debates & Shaq tries to discredit Barkley but bringing up the ring argument. One of the main debates in this is the MJ vs. Lebron debate that’s been intensifying over the last few seasons. Where the championships each has won being debated. That’s not what makes on better than the other. Their team success doesn’t identify what impact they each had on their respective teams. It takes a collective unit to win titles not just them being the best player. Michael’s 6 rings to LeBron’s 3 doesn’t make MJ the better player one bit.

One debate that stands out to me where titles are heavily weighed is the greatest QB debate between Joe Montana & Tom Brady. One QB who I feel isn’t talked about enough in QB debates is Dan Marino. Wonder why he’s left out? Because he doesn’t have a championship. Do I think that’s fair to him as an individual? NO. Dan Marino in my opinion is one of the best overall talented QB’s in league history. He doesn’t get his fair share in discussions at all. Does that make him less of an individual player because his teams didn’t win titles? In my opinion not at all. Brady & Montana are helped with titles not only because of the contributing pieces around them on both sides of the ball, their also helped with the systems their organizations have in place for them. Marino was hurt in his career (title wise) by lack of defense & running game. Montana & Brady had one of the greatest coaches ever (Bill Walsh & Bill Belichick). Played under great ownership (Robert Kraft & Edward J. DeBartolo Jr.). Meanwhile outside of Don Shula who was there to start his career, Marino didn’t have that stability at the coaching spot. He also didn’t have the benefit of a productive running game. Off the top of my head I really can’t name an RB that played with the Dolphins during Marino’s tenure. In Marino’s career he threw for 61,361 yards, which outduels Montana’s 40,551 yards. Marino threw for 420 tds, that also outduels Montana’s 273. Is Montana better than both because he has 4 rings, never lost a big game, never threw an INT in the Super Bowl? Is Brady better than Montana because he has one extra ring than Montana and more than Marino’s 0? Do titles really make one QB better than another in the ultimate team sport of football? The answer is NO.

In my opinion rings need to stop being debated to determine which player is better than the other. Rings doesn’t make the player better at all. It makes the overall team better than the other but not the player. What makes one player stand out over another is how said player performs in pressure situation over another. Another factor what makes them stand out over the other is the overall impact that they imprint on the game. Whether it’s the coaches game plan changes just to take that said player out of the game, they can take over the game and dominate it at any point or does the team around the player becomes better with that player being around them. Stats can be a factor too but, in my opinion, numbers never lie but they don’t always tell the entire story.

Rings doesn’t make the player better so let’s stop using rings into individual player debates.