NFL - Look to Vegas

NFL – Look to Vegas for Answers
The View from the Middle

Yesterday, I didn’t watch any NFL games, but I did hear some news reports about what was happening around the league. At the New Orleans Saints vs. Miami Dolphins game, the players knelt before the national anthem and stood with looked arms during it, taking a hint from the Dallas Cowboys. They announced that the players were standing because they love our country and had respect for out veterans and current armed forces personnel. While that was a step in the right direction, they left off a couple of other groups that they should honor - our police and first responders.
This morning, I woke up to the horror that occurred in Las Vegas last night. A mad man took an elevated position and sprayed bullets on an audience of over 20,000 people attending a country music festival, killing 58 and wounding over 500 innocents. It was chaos. People were running for their lives, but one concert attendee pointed out that there was one group that was running towards the gunfire, shielding civilians and giving badly needed direction to those who were fleeing. Who was that group – The POLICE, on and off duty.
It is easy to forget (at least for the NFL) the millions of heroic, compassionate and unselfish actions our police take for us all when we close our eyes to all of the good and focus only on the sliver of bad. Let me quote Abraham Lincoln again who said, “If you look for the bad in people, expecting to find it, you surely will.” The NFL can kneel in protest of the police, protected by whom? The Police! Black Lives Matter can march and chant, “What do we need? Dead cops! When do we need them? Now” protect by, guess who? The Police. Colin Kaepernick can wear socks with policemen depicted as pigs, and who protects him? The police. Marshawn Lynch can even wear an anti-Trump t-shirt (which totally misses the point of this protest) and he is protected by the police.
And while our police are getting verbally abused and literally spit on, they continue to protect us from ourselves. Last year 135 policemen and women were killed in the line of duty. 21 of those officers were ambushed or assassinated, which demonstrates planning and intent. These were no accidents. Note that this is five more than the number of unarmed black men who were killed by police in the same year.
The NFL is condemning an entire group of people for the sins and or mistakes of a tiny few. What do you call that? Oh yah, PREJUDICE! So the NFL is crying prejudice as they perform prejudice against all of our men and women in blue. Is that ironic, paradoxical or just plain stupid? You tell me.
The players in the NFL have driven the league down a dead end alley and now it is trying to scratch and claw its way out. Until they figure out how to express their love for this country and support for our soldiers and veterans and law enforcement officers and first responders, the players and the league will not win over the country to support their cause.
Let me give the NFL a solution. The players can kneel, lie down or stand on their heads before the national anthem, but they must tell the crowds that they are doing it to unite the country in the support of equal justice for all. Then they must stand for the anthem and announce that they are doing that to show love for our country and appreciation for our soldiers, veterans, policemen and women and first responders. THIS will shine a light on the issue and win the hearts of the fans, supporters and ticketholders.