In 2020, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell released a video saying it was wrong that the league did not listen to its players and encouraging them to speak out. However, when Nick Bosa voiced his opinion, Goodell’s iron fist came down on Bosa and reached into his wallet to take out $11,255.
The NFL claimed it wanted to “listen to its players” and wanted them to engage in social issues. The league encouraged them to speak out. However, this freedom only existed in a totalitarian-like fashion, in which it can control what messages the NFL’s players are saying. Players can have opinions, but those opinions must be aligned with the league’s financial commitments and follow its cowardly embrace of far-left social justice political activism.
Simply put: BLM is allowed. MAGA is forbidden.
San Francisco 49ers defensive end Nick Bosa was reportedly fined by the NFL for wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat after his team’s victory against the Dallas Cowboys on NBC’s Sunday Night Football in October. Bosa pointed to the hat while interrupting a postgame interview with quarterback Brock Purdy. As a result, Bosa was reportedly fined $11,255 for violating NFL policy, according to the Associated Press.
“It was well worth it,” Bosa would later say.
Understandably, the NFL is strict with its uniform policy. It has a brand to manage and doesn’t want anything damaging its prestige. After all, the league’s manual explicitly states the importance of image and reputation regarding player appearances.
“A player’s appearance on the field conveys a message regarding the image of the league and directly affects the league’s reputation and success,” reads the NFL’s Game Operations Manual.
Bosa violated “Rule 5, Section 4, Article 8 of the NFL rulebook, which states that ‘throughout the period on game-day that a player is visible to the stadium and television audience (including in pregame warm-ups, in the bench area, and during postgame interviews in the locker room or on the field), players are prohibited from wearing, displaying, or otherwise conveying personal messages either in writing or illustration unless such message has been approved in advance by the League office.’”
MAGA hats or any Trump paraphernalia are not approved by the league. Neither was any gear in support of the Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris. However, the unfairness comes into play when one realizes that, while the league doesn’t approve of political messages such as MAGA, it willingly embraces one of the most deceptive, destructive, and damaging political slogans of the last ten years and, arguably, in this country’s history: the radical, ideological mantra of Black Lives Matter.
In June 2020, the league cowardly succumbed to the bullying tactics of extremist social justice activists and financially committed to spending a quarter of a billion dollars, $250 million over 10 years, to indoctrinate, brainwash, spread, advance, and promote far-left political propaganda. While MAGA does not get league approval, messages such as “Black Lives Matter” are openly welcomed by the league. It’s part of the league’s commitment to “combat systemic racism and support the battle against injustices faced by African Americans.” As such, fans regularly see such things as “Black Lives Matter” or other left-wing social justice messages on players’ helmets or painted in end zones.
BLM was a movement predicated on lies about distorted and misrepresented statistics of police shootings of black men in this country. It was supported by mass propaganda efforts that advanced false and baseless narratives that suggested so-called systemic racism or white supremacy was plaguing this country and causing people to die when, in reality, statistics showed this was not happening — kind of the way donations to the group did not happen to go for the intended causes but rather into bank accounts to finance the leisurely pursuits of the organization’s founders.
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And just as former quarterback Colin Kaepernick symbolically kneeled to advance these radical narratives, the NFL would eventually kneel before Kaepernick’s acolytes and disciples in a pathetic surrender to an extremist political agenda. BLM embraced falsehoods such as the “hands up, don’t shoot” mantra, representing an incident that never happened. BLM was far-left political propaganda meant to threaten the institutions of the nation’s government to advance far-left ideological agendas, and the NFL not only embraced these lies but paid hundreds of millions of dollars to spread them.
The league publicly stated it wanted its players to speak out, but restricting that speech is just as bad as not allowing them to say anything. Given this oppression of speech and the benefit of hindsight of the corruption of BLM, it is abundantly clear that there needs to be more MAGA in the NFL and less BLM. If the NFL has even a fraction of the guts and courage the league’s players show every Sunday on the gridiron, it will right this wrong.