Not since 1987 has there been a player strike in the NFL that actually went on during the regular season. But the recent national anthem policy enacted by the league may be something that causes the latest in-season work stoppage.
The new anthem policy, however, is not the only thing that may cause a player strike in the NFL this year.
Recently, The Intercept’s Shaun King reported that a number of star players around the league are thinking about not playing in 2018 until both Colin Kaepernick and Eric Reid are offered NFL contracts.
https://twitter.com/ShaunKing/status/1000862670453657602
Now, what King defines as a “star” player is not entirely known. But in order for any sort of player strike to be successful in 2018, it has have participation from some of the NFL’s most notable performers.
Guys like Eric Berry, Antonio Brown, DeAndre Hopkins, Julio Jones, Von Miller, Cam Newton, Josh Norman, Patrick Peterson, and Russell Wilson would have to lead the movement in order for it to have any kind of impact.
Not only are these players some of the league’s most popular at this point in time, they are all still vital parts of their team’s success. Their absence would likely have a tremendously negative impact on their team’s performance.
One may have already noticed, but all of the above players mentioned are also African-American.
There’s no reason to beat around the bush or ignore the obvious when it comes to the NFL’s new national anthem policy. The league’s rich, white owners agreed to a policy that is essentially a reaction to black players protesting to raise awareness for police brutality against African-Americans and other racial inequalities.
Yes, there have been some white players who have knelt or participated in an anthem protest, but the majority have been black. If people don’t believe this new anthem policy has anything to do with race, then they are doing themselves a huge disservice.
The egos of some of the NFL’s owners have become so out of control that they actually believe they are the reason for the team’s success and not the players. This was made more clear than ever when the NFLPA was not even consulted before the enactment of the league’s new anthem policy.
If players like the ones mentioned above were to go on strike, some of the owners may quickly realize how vital they are to their franchise making a profit each year.
Realistically, the required impact to create any sort of change would likely have to come from the NFL being forced to cancel games. If a player strike is unable to cause these results, than the league’s owners will just continue to treat their players more like property and less like actual human beings.
This would be hilarious. They should do this.
You think the owners would lose this one?
Please do this.
Please strike. Here’s a clue: Walk into your bosses office and tell them that unless they start running the business the way you want them to you are leaving and see how well that works for you. You think these players are irreplaceable? They aren’t.
So here’s how that plays – they leave and are vocal about it. Every single year there are hundreds of college players that would love to get a shot – some of them even fairly good – who could fill in those roles. There would be no game cancellations and at some point you have to do more than whine like a little (w)itch about some tangential societal issue. Here’s a fact that ruins their entire crybaby argument: Nearly all police interactions between themselves and civilians are peaceful (regardless of race) and nearly all that aren’t are because the civilians they are interacting with are breaking the law. You can identity politic this all you want but it isn’t going to make it any less true.
Human beings and systems run by human beings aren’t perfect and never will be. You can argue that they can be ‘better’ all you want but the reality is that even people in your movement can’t put any real metrics on that unless you start going off topic and into already proven to have failed (and fairly unpopular) Marxist ideas.
What’s next? Take a knee unless they get their 40 acres and a mule? Take a knee unless everyone gets an equal outcome? Take a knee unless (fill in the blank societal issue.) Good luck with that. At some point (and they still aren’t there yet because I would call the owners cowards) the owners have to man up and tell their employees that if they want to be in politics it can be on their own time. Politics at the office = door is that way and don’t let it hit you on the way out. Should have been done when this started.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion – they aren’t entitled to not suffer the consequences of expressing said opinion. Have fun on their strike and whining to journalists like yourself who will spend their time telling us how horrible we are for not listening to what you believe should be our world view. /yawn.
Kaep doesn’t have a job because he sucks. No other reason.
after alienating half their customers by engaging in tribal antics on the bosses’ time, these arrogant dimwits think they need to strike? oh how I love the San Diego FLEET!