Players protest honors rights our flag represents

If it was President Trump’s intention to discourage the protests of professional football players who during games this season have taken a knee or sat during the national anthem, his tweets and statements to supporters achieved the opposite, a response that spanned all teams playing from London to Los Angeles over the weekend.

Friday, at a rally in Alabama, Trump mused: “Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now, out, he’s fired. He’s fired!’”

The tweets continued in a similar vein through the weekend and into Monday.

If anything, they galvanized a response from NFL players, team staff and ownership.

Many games saw players lock arms, some standing and others on one knee during the anthem. Other teams, such as the Seattle Seahawks and the Tennessee Titans, playing Sunday in Tennessee, remained in their locker rooms. In the Seahawks’ case, they did so with the endorsement of the team’s management, coaching staff and ownership.

“We fully support our players’ use of their freedom of speech and peaceful action to highlight the existing racial and other divides in our country,” read a statement from Seahawks President Peter McLoughlin, that also stressed players’ respect for the military and veterans but also the belief that issues facing the country needed to be expressed.

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