Posted on 09/20/2020 8:05:35 AM PDT by Hojczyk
Anthem protests began in 2016, when San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick sat and later knelt during the anthem, followed by several other players for other teams doing the same thing. It was a significant factor in the 8% plunge in viewership for a league that had previously been seen nationwide as a great unifier.
That ratings plunge continued the next year after the protests expanded in President Trump's first year in office. This time, the plunge was 9.7%.
For years, the NFL was the glue that for generations gave a guy sitting in his game room in East Palestine, Ohio, a deep connection with a guy in a penthouse in Manhattan because of the passion for their teams. Instead, the league became a social justice organization that was no longer holding them together.
Last week, the Steelers played their first game of the season with a social justice message on their helmets. Villanueva, who served three tours in Afghanistan, instead chose to honor a fallen veteran, Alwyn Cashe, who died during the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2005.
The rest of the team honored Antwon Rose II on the back of their helmets. Rose, who was black, was shot by a white police officer in June 2018. A jury that included three black jurors found the former suburban Pittsburgh police officer not guilty after deliberating for 3.5 hours.
The young people the league is trying to bring in are more fickle. Older fans are tired of politics infecting everything they do — whether they agree with the sentiments or not, they just want to enjoy a game without being lectured.
What the NFL needs is a lot more people like Villanueva, not for his patriotism but for his willingness to search outside what everyone else thinks he should do.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...
LOL - so true.
We live in an Alice in Wonderland world. Words mean what someone wants them to mean. People even get fired for using a word that was in my 4th grade Word Power book.
Whores don’t play the National Anthem before a strip show... why should the NFL play it before their games?
The ‘sportsmanship’ thing is something from the past... today’s games are talent and force. Let the half time twerkers put on a mini show before the game starts and leave it at that.
OUTLAW THE NATIONAL ANTHEM AT ALL ‘SPORTING’ EVENTS.
The name Villanueva used was that of a soldier that saved the lives of many of his fellow soldiers while he himself was on fire. He received the Medal of Honor. You are a sad unhappy person.
I’m fine. You simply missed the point...
No names should be on any helmet or uniform for any reason period except the players.
This is a business not a place to protest whatever you want or put your personal feelings out.
Yes, Legends Football is the best. Dont know if they are playing now. I have just been watching the reruns.
You used to play the National Anthem on special occasions. It was so popular, they began playing it before every game.
It is still popular. To stop playing it would be surrender.
Maybe his grandfather had the name, but not his father.
Therefore, he would be “II” instead of “Jr.”.
You’re only a Jr. if you have the same name as your father.
No. His father had the same name as his son.
If his grandfather had that name, his father would have been a junior and he would have been III.
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