Dale Hansen calls out Jerry Jones for leaving hat on during anthem
Dale Hansen of WFAA in Dallas has a long history of on-air commentary that calls out the Cowboys when they deserve to be called out. In the aftermath of the team’s anthem mandate, Hansen is calling the Cowboys out.
But he’s not simply pointing out the disconnect between the willingness to give second chances for a wide range of antisocial behavior and the “our way or the highway” approach to the anthem. Hansen points out, with video evidence, that owner Jerry Jones participated in the national anthem played prior to a recent team practice with his hat still on his head.
It’s one of the most basic requirements when it comes to the playing of the anthem. Stand up, remove hat, and place right hand over heart.
“He who makes the rules apparently doesn’t have to follow them,” Hansen said.
When the NFL clumsily enacted Anthem Policy 2.0, which requires all players who enter the field of play to stand for the anthem and respect the flag, the league opened the door for the conduct of owners, fans, and others in the stands during the anthem to be scrutinized.
Already, Jones has committed a faux pas that those who insist on respect for the anthem and the flag wouldn’t tolerate. Regardless of how the anthem policy plays out, those who insist on standing for the anthem and respecting the flag need to be prepared to do the same.
Richard Sherman sounds off on Jerry Jones, national anthem policy, comeback with 49ers
SANTA CLARA, Calif. – Richard Sherman has a new team and a new challenge as he begins the San Francisco 49ers stage of his career with task of rebounding from a torn Achilles tendon, but don’t think for a minute that he is still not the NFL’s bombastic cornerback.
Just listen to Sherman rail on about the new rule aimed to take the helmet out of the game.
“It’s ridiculous,” Sherman told USA TODAY Sports during a training camp break. “They’ll see how ridiculous it is, once they make the refs call it. It’s going to be worse than holding, worse than the catch rule. On a good form tackle, guys will lead with their shoulder pads, but you bring your head.
“It’s going to be a disaster.”
Sherman was also passionate about the efforts to craft a national anthem policy. He spares no words in expressing his disgust for Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, who has declared that, regardless of policy, he will require Cowboys players to stand at attention without respect to any possible protests.
“The owner of the Dallas Cowboys, with the old plantation mentality,” Sherman said of Jones. “What did you expect?”
No, Sherman, a member of the NFL Players Association’s executive committee, would not be a fit with the Cowboys.
Yet he’s still encouraged by discussions between the league and players' union while the policy that team owners adopted in May has been put on puase.
“They’re having the conversations; that’s awesome,” Sherman said. “But there are unintended consequences. If they did this (original policy) to appease people, they didn’t appease anyone. It’s like putting a Band-Aid over a broken leg.”
Dak Prescott says he has ‘no regrets’ despite social media storm over anthem comments
Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott has taken a beating on social media since his comments last week seemingly supporting owner Jerry Jones’ edict regarding protests against social justice and racism during the national anthem.
Jones said the Cowboys must stand with their toes on the line or face the possibility of losing their jobs.
Prescott said Jones’ words, which were contrary to NFL policy and prompted a league-wide gag order on the subject, didn’t faze him because he believed in standing and was going to do what he always had done.
Prescott said he understood the reasons behind the protests, which began with former San Francisco 49er quarterback Colin Kaepernick two years ago and were continued by a number of other players across the league, most notably Philadelphia Eagles safety Malcolm Jenkins.
But Prescott said he believed it was the wrong time and venue in which to protest.
It prompted a swift and visceral backlash on social media, accusing Prescott of selling out and not supporting a cause very dear to many people of color, especially with President Donald Trump continuing to use the issue to attack the NFL and fire up his base.
Prescott received criticism from journalists, rappers, comedians and some fellow NFL players. His own Twitter and Instagram pages have been bombarded by a number of unflattering memes and comments.
“I am not oblivious to it,” Prescott told the Star-Telegram after practice Tuesday. “You get on social media, you see It. It doesn’t bother me. I said what I said. You have an opinion. Everyone else has an opinion. They are entitled to it as well. I accepted what they said and respect it. They should respect mine.”
Prescott regrets nothing he said. He believes in standing for the anthem because that is a time of reflection for him. He said his views of the protests were misunderstood and that he certainly recognizes racism and inequality issues still plaguing our country.
“I think there was a little misunderstanding of the fact of what I believe in,” Prescott said. “I never said I didn’t believe in social injustice and things that were going on. I just said I didn’t think that the national anthem was the time. It’s two minutes out of our day that we could also be spending embracing what our country should be and what our country is going to be one day that we know that it’s not right now. That is the sad part about it. That it’s not.
“I respect everybody. And power to the people that kneel. That is what they believe in and they should be able to kneel. For me, the game of football has been such a peace. It’s a moment for me to be at peace and think about all the great things our country does have even though we know it’s not a good for us right now.”
Prescott also said his comments about believing in action over protests were taken out context as well. He never meant to suggest that Kaepernick, Jenkins or any of the other players were only protesting and not doing things in the community.
His point was that “he” wanted to be about action.
“I am for the action,” Prescott said. “I am for joining Malcolm and joining those guys in doing something different. That is what I mean, my taking that next step rather than just kneeling or standing. I don’t think kneeling or standing is creating a solution for us.”
Syndicated radio host DL Hughley: "The Cowboys are what America is - indifferent to black people suffering. That's what they've always been. America's always been indifferent to the cries and injustice toward black people. They've always done it.
"The only time black people have white people's attention is when we're entertaining. Imagine getting millions of white people to look at millions of black people do anything like jumping, running, laughing, singing or jumping. They only pay attention to us when we're doing something they like so there's no better time to have a conversation.
"I understand you want to make your money. You could've said nothing. But you chose to speak to the master. You chose to speak for the master. And I say this -- it's perfect for that two players who would speak up for the Cowboys owner -- at least you got the 'boy' part right.
Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones behaves like slave owner over NFL kneeling policy
As a lifelong Philadelphia Eagles fan, I was bred to hate the Dallas Cowboys. But as a black man, I now despise them even more, thanks to the hypocritical reaction of Cowboys leadership to NFL players who protest racial injustice by kneeling during the national anthem.
Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, who has since been asked by the NFL to avoid talking about the anthem while the league tries to negotiate a solution with the players union, recently stirred the pot. He did so by declaring that the team’s players must stand with “toes on the line” during the anthem, regardless of the NFL’s policy.
Jones once knelt with his players before the anthem in what was widely viewed as fake solidarity after President Donald Trump criticized the protests. But Jones’ latest statements reminded me that team owners sometimes think and behave like slave owners. And when black Dallas quarterback Dak Prescott essentially backed Jones’ views by saying the anthem was not “the time or the venue” to protest, it reminded me that blacks sometimes adopt the mindset of our oppressors. Therein lies the problem.
The African-American relationship with patriotism is complicated. We’ve spent hundreds of years in a country we built without compensation, living among people who see us as less than human, all while fighting systems designed to treat us as second-class citizens.
Despite this truth, we are expected to view the flag with the same reverence as our white counterparts, and that’s an unrealistic expectation.
While we can love the place that we built, and protect it with our very lives, our relationship with America can never be the same as that of our white counterparts. That’s especially true now, when oppression is documented in video of police killing unarmed blacks, and popularized in the utterances of a president whose rhetoric targets racial, ethnic, and religious minorities.
The national anthem simply does not have the same meaning for black people who continue to fall victim to systemic and institutional racism. That’s why NFL players are protesting, and that’s why it was so heartbreaking to see Prescott, who is black, speak out against those protests with the blissful unawareness of the ignorant.
“I’d never protest,” Prescott said when he was asked to respond to Jones’ anthem demands. “I’d never protest during (the) anthem, and I don’t think that’s the time or the venue to do so. The game of football has always brought me such a peace, and I think it does the same for a lot of people — a lot of people playing the game, a lot of people watching the game, a lot of people that have any impact of the game. So when you bring such a controversy to the stadium, to the field, to the game, it takes away. It takes away from that. It takes away from the joy and the love that football brings a lot of people.”
In my view, Prescott has adopted a view that says a game is more important than black lives. Perhaps he’s doing so because he doesn’t understand the meaning of the protests. So let me reiterate.
NFL players are protesting because men who look like Prescott are being shot and killed by police. They are protesting because money cannot insulate professional athletes from such abuse. Just as police in New York wrestled black tennis pro James Blake to the ground, or NBA rookie Sterling Brown was Tasered and tackled by police in Milwaukee, NFL players such as Prescott can also be the victims of abuse. And it can happen simply because they are black.
That’s not empty rhetoric. It’s based on numerous studies showing that the use of police force is greater for African-Americans than for whites. One such study, called “The Science of Justice: Race, Arrests, and Police Use of Force,” by the Center for Policing Equity, found that police are more than three times as likely to use force on blacks than on whites.
So when black professional athletes such as Dak Prescott ignore that reality, it hurts. It hurts because it shows that for Prescott and others like him, having peace during a football game is more important than having equality in the country we built. It shows that for Prescott and others like him, currying favor with Jerry Jones is more important than maintaining the respect of his community. It shows that for Prescott and others like him, identifying as a Dallas Cowboy is more important than identifying as a black man.
That, more than anything, makes me despise the Dallas Cowboys. If they can strip a black man of his identity in the name of forced patriotism, they will never understand what black protest is all about.