The NFL’s fractured season will proceed without Odell Beckham Jr., J.J. Watt or any immediate resolution to the ongoing controversy surrounding player protests during the national anthem.
After the first weekend following the recent comments made by President Donald Trump, at a campaign rally on Sept. 22 in Alabama, said that NFL owners should fire any player who protests during the anthem and referred to such a player as a “son of a bitch.” That Sunday, players protested in various ways, as individuals or with teammates. Afterward, some within the league expressed the hope that the focus would return to football.
That has proven an elusive goal.
Trump and Vice President Mike Pence amplified the national debate over the anthem protests once more Sunday, and Dallas Cowboys Owner Jerry Jones contributed to the conversation later in the day after his team’s loss at home to the Green Bay Packers.
It also was a Sunday of major injuries to two of the game’s biggest stars. New York Giants wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. suffered a fractured ankle during a loss to the Los Angeles Chargers, dropping the Giants’ record to 0-5. Watt, a three-time NFL defensive player of the year attempting to make a successful return from a 2016 season cut short by back surgery, suffered a fracture in his leg during the Houston Texans’ loss Sunday night to the Kansas City Chiefs.
It appears likely that neither Beckham nor Watt will play again this season. If not, their absences will be yet another factor the NFL must overcome in a season that has been filled with obstacles for what long has been the nation’s most popular and prosperous sports league.
The season’s first few weeks brought questions about quality of play and whether safety-related restrictions on offseason practice time and practice-field hitting – attempts to deal with the consequences of head injuries – were hurting the on-field product.
There have been ongoing concerns about sagging TV ratings and attendance issues, particularly in Los Angeles, as the league plays its first season in more than two decades with two franchises based there.
Marquee teams have not played up to expectations. The New England Patriots, coming off their fifth Super Bowl title with Bill Belichick as their coach and Tom Brady as their quarterback, opened the season with a stunning loss to the Chiefs and have a record of 3-2. The Cowboys, who led a post-election partial recovery in TV viewership last season, are 2-3 following the last-second defeat Sunday to the Packers. The Chiefs remain the NFL’s only unbeaten team.
No team has signed Colin Kaepernick, the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback who began the protest movement last season to bring attention, he said, to the treatment of African Americans in the United States. Kaepernick’s ongoing unemployment remains an issue each time he is passed over, most recently by the Tennessee Titans and Oakland Raiders.
The Cowboys and Packers played a thrilling game Sunday at AT&T Stadium reminiscent of Green Bay’s memorably dramatic triumph in the same building during last season’s NFC playoffs. Packers standout Aaron Rodgers crafted both victories with late-game quarterbacking magic.
But the compelling on-field action Sunday in Dallas was overshadowed when Jones said afterward that any Cowboys players “disrespecting the flag” will not play.
“We’re going to respect the flag, and I’m going to create the perception of it,” Jones said.
That came after Pence left a game between the 49ers and Colts in Indianapolis earlier Sunday, citing player protests during the anthem. Trump tweeted that he’d directed Pence to do just that if such protests occurred. Pence’s early exit came on a day when the Colts were honoring their former great quarterback, Peyton Manning.
The NFL Players Association issued a statement defending players’ rights to protest if they choose to do so.
“We should not stifle these discussions and cannot allow our rights to become subservient to the very opinions our Constitution protects,” the union’s statement said. “That is what makes us the land of the free and home of the brave.”
It all served as a vivid reminder that the NFL is struggling mightily these days to have its Sundays be about the action on the field.