ORLANDO — Of all people, Bob McNair opened up about a couple pressing matters — NFL protests and the scandal that forced Jerry Richardson to put the Carolina Panthers on the market — as team owners gathered Sunday for another round of league meetings.
It was not a good look. Sounded even worse.
McNair, the Houston Texans owner who ignited controversy last fall when ESPN leaked his “inmates running the prison” analogy that referred to either players or executives at league headquarters, tried his best to defend Richardson.
Swing and a miss.
Richardson, under NFL investigation as his franchise is poised to set an NFL franchise sale record in excess of $2 billion, is accused of workplace violations. First revealed in January by Sports Illustrated, the allegations include sexual and racial overtones.
McNair’s take?
“Some of the comments could have been made jokingly,” McNair said of Richardson. “I’m sure he didn’t mean to offend anybody.”
Talk about being tone-deaf. McNair sounds like an out-of-touch man who might think #MeToo is a movement to expand the size of NFL rosters.
As he spoke to a small group of reporters in the lobby of the swanky hotel, McNair doubled down on his previously held view that NFL players should not protest during the national anthem.
Hey, wait a minute. Didn’t they already settle that? Not quite. Further discussion is on the agenda this week, and there are some still pushing for a hard-line policy that goes beyond the “suggestion” in the gameday operations manual that all players stand for the anthem.
John Mara, the New York Giants co-owner, said that he’s hopeful there will be some “resolution” of where the NFL stands (no pun intended) on the issue when NFL owners meet again in May in Atlanta (where Dr. Martin Luther King was pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church).
McNair, though, leaves no gray area.
“Our playing field, that’s not the place for political statements,” McNair said. “Not the place for religious statements.”
McNair, who was recently deposed by Colin Kaepernick’s attorneys for the unemployed quarterback’s collusion case against the NFL, maintains that NFL fans are upset about the protests — although there are clearly fans (and not just those at the stadiums) on both sides of the issue.
“Fans are our customers,” McNair said. “You can replace the owners and the league will survive. You can replace the players, although the game won’t be good. You can’t replace the fans. If you don’t have fans, you’re dead.”
Quick, somebody call the NBA for help.
Better yet, Roger Goodell needs to roll some videotape for NFL owners as he conducts some serious sensitivity training. When McNair talks, as he did again on Sunday, about the issue as if the protests are about the flag or disrespecting the military, it reeks of insensitivity. Again.
When Kaepernick launched his protest in 2016, it was about the killing of unarmed African-Americans by police and other social injustices. The failure of some power brokers in the league to acknowledge that is still an issue.
That’s why Goodell needs to show — and some NFL owners need to learn from — the two-minute, courtside speech to fans by NBA Sacramento Kings owner Vivek Randive after his team’s game on Thursday night was disrupted by people protesting local police killing an unarmed African-American man in his grandmother’s backyard.
Cheers to Randive. He thanked fans for their patience. He called the shooting a “horrific incident in our community.” He expressed heartfelt sympathies for the families, on behalf of the entire Kings organization. He said they recognized and respected the right to protest peacefully. And he mentioned how the Kings’ platform represents a privilege and a responsibility to society.
“It’s not business as usual,” Randive said.
Somewhere, there’s a lesson in this for the NFL.
And guess what? The NBA game went on. And the fans in the arena – predominantly white — gave Radive a standing ovation.
Contrast that with McNair, who declared, “Our playing field, that’s not the place for political statements, not the place for religious statements.”
What, the players can’t pray, either?
How un-American, coming from someone who probably believes they are patriotic to the hilt.
Not every NFL owner lacks sensitivity. New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, a lifelong Democrat and friend of the NFL Basher-in-Chief, Donald Trump, donated his team’s luxury jet to transport students from Parkland High School and their family members to Washington, D.C., for the huge anti-gun rally on Saturday. That’s some serious sensitivity, a wonderful gesture of support.
McNair has earned points for his community-service contributions, too, including efforts last fall after Hurricane Harvey ravaged South Texas. Yet McNair has also proved again that he’s the last man you want talking about sensitive issues like anthem protests or workplace violations ... unless you want to hear someone, well, speaking from the heart to demonstrate just how far we have to go.