The Players Coalition, a group of roughly 40 players that was formed this year to help with criminal justice reform in various communities, have requested a face-to-face meeting with Roger Goodell, Texans owner Bob McNair, and Colin Kaepernick, as ESPN’s Jim Trotter tweets. The Coalition has requested that the meeting take place tomorrow in Philadelphia.
The full request is available in Trotter’s tweet above and was seemingly triggered by a recent ESPN The Magazine story wherein McNair was quoted as saying, “we can’t have the inmates running the prison.” Although that is a common idiom, and although McNair clarified the comment by saying that he was referring to how the league has been making significant strategic decisions without adequate input from ownership, anything that could be construed as a social comment probably will be in today’s racially-charged NFL, and the Coalition certainly appeared to take it as such. The request stated that the “events” that have unfolded the last several days — it is unclear what events the request is referring to outside of McNair’s quote — demonstrate the “lack of seriousness that some league officials are approaching our discussions [sic].”
The Coalition goes on to say that it believes the only way towards progress is open dialogue, which is why it wants to meet with the Commissioner, McNair, and the player who is at the epicenter of the league’s social reform discussions. As ESPN’s Josina Anderson tweets, the Coalition believed it was important for Kaepernick to make his voice heard at the meeting.
However, Cam Inman of the Mercury News tweets that the NFL has no update as to whether the Coalition’s requested meeting would take place tomorrow. Per Anderson, the Coalition is not taking the league’s silence very well (Twitter link), but it seems likely that some response will be forthcoming. There is already a social activism-based meeting scheduled for players and owners this week, a meeting that Kaepernick has agreed to attend, so the league could feel that the Coalition’s request is largely redundant.
All i can say is what a distraction . Can’t this nonsense wait until after the season? Im sorry but if i was a cop and you aim a weapon at me, your gonna end up in a bag. True story.
It’s not like the owners or Kaepernick have to go to practice, and players have been doing a pretty great job of balancing playing on the field and participating in the NFLPA. Who’s getting distracted?
That expression is a generic commonly used phrase. If some players are offended by the anthem, common expressions or anything else you are free to leave. This is America land of opportunity go find another career, or just shut the league down. Spoiled little brats.
Agree I’m sure there are thousands of players that would love to be where these babies are playing something’s I get but something people say all the time is BS plus he was saying it about all player not just ones with color but the media loves to stir the pot and make it sound racist god
Can’t we all just try and get along we all have are faults deal with them and stop blaming everything on color
No one said anything about color. The players stated they didn’t like being compared to inmates. The fact that you assume this was a reference to race just goes to show that these guys have a point when saying people of color are being locked up and killed at a disproportionate rate.
What do you think “plantation mentality” means? Yes, race was brought into this from the start. He wasn’t comparing them to inmates. It is a phrase meaning that you can’t let it get to a point where there is no governance or structure. Letting anarchy rule is generally not a good idea. Also, maybe, just maybe, the reason black males are being locked up at a disproportionate rate is that they are committing a disproportionate amount of the crime. Blaming every single discrepancy on racism is very disingenuous and doesn’t solve anything.
He said nothing wrong these cry babies are making millions of dollars a year and a lot of them can’t even put a sentence together.
You have a run on sentence here lol. Sorry, hate to be that guy, but I couldn’t ignore the irony.
National Felon League players are going to wish they never bit the hands that feed them before too long!!!
Kaepernick is suing the league…. why meet with him other then to litigate the lawsuit
He probably wants to settle rather than fully take them on in court. And he finally has an excuse to be allowed to talk to some of these owners about the issues he’s concerned about. He’d be stupid not to take the opportunity to figure out what’s going on in Goodell and McNair’s heads.
And the owners and Goodell would also rather settle than have another lawsuit hanging over the NFL’s not-so-great image.
Yeah last I checked, the inmates don’t run the prison… so why is this an issue? Sensitive silly works here … please go home and cry to mama!