The former National Football League Coach of the Super Bowl winning Chicago Bears, Mike Ditka, has his own opinion on the NFL players who kneel during the anthem, get out of the country.
“Go to another country and play football there,” Mike Ditka said of the NFL players protesting the national anthem. https://t.co/PqiRSqnLTI
— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) September 16, 2020
Recently, Hall of Fame and Super Bowl winner, Ditka, again expressed his disdain for NFL players who kneel or protest the anthem in some way. Regardless of them doing it supposedly over what they believe is an epidemic of police brutality, racial injustice, or any other reason, he is dead set against it.
Ditka started voicing his extreme patriotic stance after failed NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick started kneeling for the National Anthem in 2016. Ditka, like many other Americans, views kneeling or showing protest during the National Anthem unpatriotic. Ditka’s message to Kaepernick back then, “get the hell out” of the country.
Now, four years have passed since Kaepernick took a knee and some of the country is roiled in civil unrest after the death of George Floyd while in police custody in May. Many professional sports players and teams have been vocal of their support for Black Lives Matter and other protests against the police and country. Ditka, however, is dead set against anything occurring during the anthem.
Ditka said:
“If you can’t respect our National Anthem, get the hell out of the country. That’s the way I feel. Of course, I’m old fashioned. So, I’m only going to say what I feel…You don’t protest against the flag, and you don’t protest against this country who’s given you the opportunities to make a living playing a sport that you never thought would happen. So, I don’t want to hear all the crap.”
For some reason, despite Ditka making his stance very clear, over the course of several years, Newsmax offered him yet another opportunity to change his mind when they interviewed him on September 14th.
In the interview, Ditka said:
NFL 🏈: Hall-of-Fame coach Mike Ditka tells protesting players that if ‘they can’t respect this country, get the hell out of it.’ [with Newsmax TV’s @ShaunKraisman https://t.co/VlT7z8drtO] pic.twitter.com/E3jPCBrMdt
— Newsmax (@newsmax) September 14, 2020
“Football’s football. It’s not a complicated thing. You’re playing the game, you’re enjoying the game. You don’t like the game, get out of it.
“It’s not for protesting one way or the other. What color you are, what you think, this or that. You play football. That’s it. You’re privileged. You got a gift from God that you can play the game because you got a body you can do it with.
“I don’t really understand what you’re protesting. I played the game. I coached the game for a long time. It makes no sense to me…
“I would tell those players go to another country and play football there. You don’t have to come out. You don’t have to come out if you go to another country. You can’t! Because the game’s only played in this country. And if you can’t respect this country, get the hell out of it.”
Of course, the mainstream media is in shock that someone like Ditka would denounce players protests. They claim that the protests are not about the flag or disrespecting the country, and who knows, that could be the case.
NFL players are claiming that they mean no disrespect to the flag, even though, by all accounts, they are doing just that, disrespecting the flag by kneeling. However, they claim that they are protesting what they believe is racial inequality and police brutality.
For these players that are really protesting police brutality, a cause that, by all statistical measures does not exist, they should, in Ditka’s belief, find another way to give voice to their beliefs. After all, professional sports are nothing more than playing a game, a game in which these players are only allowed to participate in because people pay to watch it.
When players take an active part in any type of protest, regardless of what it is, they take the chance of alienating part of their audience. Ditka’s point is echoed by many people in this country that look at the facts and not the narratives of a political movement. Those people, who believe like Ditka, will not be watching nor attending any NFL game until the protests stop.
What will become clear over time, is if the gamble the NFL is taking on protests will cost them enough money that they put an end to it, or, if they will profit from it in the long term.
In addition to taking a knee, the NFL has allowed some players to display the names of criminals on the backs of their helmets.
In the NFL’s latest form of virtue signaling regarding Black Lives Matter, they’ve officially released the list of names and phrases that players can adorn on their helmets this season.
Phrases like “Black Lives Matter” and “End Racism” were among the phrases that were deemed appropriate, which is hardly shocking.
The NFL has disclosed their list of approved names that they will allow players to wear on their helmet bumpers for social justice messaging. Among the names are Jacob Blake, who is accused of sexual assault. https://t.co/VjVBsowTvm
— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) September 12, 2020
While it’s great to see that players can wear the name of fallen retired police Captain David Dorn (thank goodness), some of the other choices among the batch of names were odd in nature.
And yes, alleged rapist Jacob Blake is among them (big shocker there).
The sane people are afraid of being cancelled.
— Patti D. (@pattijo63) September 12, 2020
Black Lives Matter has been one of the most confusing things to follow when it pertains to exactly whom they decide to martyr at any given moment. A majority of the names that NFL players can wear, happen to have that good old BLM stamp of approval.
NFL players can host the names of folks like George Floyd and Rodney King – but there are some names on the list that are allowed to grace NFL helmets, that don’t make much sense or have little or no indication of police violence, victims of a crime or a race-related murder.
Take for instance, Alteria Woods.
Maybe that name might be familiar to some, but to many it won’t ring a bell. And if you have heard the name, then perhaps all you heard was that a 21-year-old pregnant woman was shot by police in Florida in 2017. At least, that’s what all the headlines loved to showcase.
Alteria Woods & Andrew Coffee IV: Pregnant 21-Year-Old Shot & Killed During Drug Raid After Boyfriend Uses Her As Human Shield pic.twitter.com/tKOv8839tt
— Morris Griffin (@morrisgriffin_) March 21, 2017
Well, what wasn’t exactly showcased in many headlines was that while Woods was indeed shot by police – it was because her boyfriend, 23-year-old Andrew Coffee IV, used her as a human shield after opening fire on police during a SWAT raid.
And yes, Coffee was a black man that used a black pregnant women to shield himself from returned fire.
NFL players can also host the name of Trayvon Martin, who was the name that instigated the entire BLM movement.
Except, his shooting was justified via forensics and self-defense laws. Furthermore, it wasn’t even involving a police officer and the shooter went to trial and was found to be acquitted.
The justice system was used and worked in the case.
Players can also wear the name of Michael Brown, the strong-armed robber who terrorized a store clerk, attacked a police officer, and was fatally shot for trying to harm the officer.
In that case, along with witness testimony that said the officer was under attack by Brown, the grand jury refused to indict the officer.
Apparently, NFL players can also wear the name of a convicted murderer – Kenneth Clark Senior. But I guess that’s okay because he’s the father of Green Bay’s Kenny Clark and swears he’s an innocent man in prison.
Father of Green Bay Packers player Kenny Clark not getting out of prison https://t.co/VScTDKPnGL @nfl #football
— MinnesotaCheeseHeads (@MnCheeseHeads) March 6, 2017
I’m sure the family of Misael Rosales, who was murdered by Clark in 2005, would be pleased to see his killer’s name on football helmets.
Then there’s Janisha Fonville, who attacked police with a knife when they were responding to a domestic call.
She was shot after lunging at the officer with a knife, and the shooting was later deemed justified because of Fonville’s actions.
She ran at the cop with a knife. Sure, he could’ve found another means of stopping her, but in life threatening situations he had every right to shoot her.
— McKade (@McKade24260743) June 1, 2020
While on the subject of wearing names of people who attacked police before getting shot, there’s also Darius Tarver.
That was the man who, after being tased, retrieved a large knife and a frying pan and tried to attack Denton Police officers with them. He even managed to slice one officer before being fatally shot.
There are literally dozens of names that NFL players can wear on their helmets this season, and yet so many of them make little sense. Alleged rapists, convicted murderers, those who tried to kill police officers…it’s perhaps the strangest form of martyrdom one could ever witness.
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