Page 14 - Florida Sentinel 5-29-18

Sports
NFL Reportedly Did Not
Richard Sherman: Jed York Abstaining From Anthem Vote ‘Carries A Lot Of Weight’
RICHARD SHERMAN AND JED YORK
It’s an open question how players concerned with social justice will react after NFL owners voted for the league’s new national anthem policy. There is one team, however, who can claim an owner that did not.
San Francisco 49ers owner Jed York was the lone owner to not vote for the proposal, choosing instead to abstain. That has not gone unnoticed by one of his players, cornerback Richard Sherman.
Another owner has said players will still be free to kneel on his team, though he did vote for the proposal. Despite the unanimity, there definitely is at least some blowback against the new rule, even among own- ership.
Buried On Alouettes'
Hold Official Vote On
Depth Chart, Josh Freeman
New Anthem Policy
Announces Retirement
Roger Goodell said Wednesday that the NFL’s new national anthem policy was “unanimously adopted” by all of the league’s team owners and executives, but it’s kind of difficult to figure out what the commissioner is using as a measuring stick.
The NFL reportedly did not hold an official vote on the new policy, though all owners were apparently polled in some fashion.
What the NFL probably does not want us to know is that at least two team owners abstained from voting, though there apparently wasn’t an official vote any- way. One of them was San Francisco 49ers Jed York,
ROGER GOODELL
and Mark Davis of the Oakland Raiders did the same.
Again, it’s hard to figure out how Goodell can call the new policy “unanimously adopted” if two owners chose not to vote and the poll was completely unofficial.
Former Tampa Bay Buc- caneers star quarterback Josh Freeman has decided to retire from the CFL, the Montreal Alouettes an- nounced Saturday.
Freeman, 30, signed a two-year deal with the Alou- ettes in January, in an at- tempt to resurrect his once-promising NFL career. But he found himself at the bottom of the depth chart one week into.
"We would like to thank Josh for his work and dedi- cation. He was a consummate professional throughout camp," Alouettes general manager Kavis Reed said in a statement. "We respect his decision and we wish him the
JOSH FREEMAN
best in the future." Freeman's last NFL ac-
tion came in 2015, when he started one regular-season game for the Indianapolis Colts, throwing for 149 yards with a touchdown and an in- terception.
Jets Chairman Willing To Pay Fine If Players Kneel During Anthem
Jets Chairman Christopher Johnson, center, won't fine players for anthem protests.
Le’Veon Bell
NFL Hired Firm To Conduct Poll Gauging Public Opinion
Of Colin Kaepernick
COLIN KAEPERNICK
The new national anthem rules put forth by the NFL may have been unanimously approved by owners, but it sounds like at least one act- ing owner isn’t really in favor.
Jets acting owner and chairman Christopher Johnson said he would pay the fine if any Jets players kneel during the national an- them, and that he had no in- tention of instituting any team-specific rules levying any punishment against players who kneel.
“I do not like imposing any club-specific rules,” Johnson said, via Bob Glauber of Newsday. “If somebody [on the Jets] takes a knee, that fine will be borne by the organization, by me, not the players. I never want to put restrictions on the speech of our players. Do I prefer that they stand? Of
course. But I understand if they felt the need to protest. There are some big, compli- cated issues that we’re all struggling with, and our players are on the front lines. I don’t want to come down on them like a ton of bricks, and I won’t. There will be no club fines or suspensions or any sort of repercussions. If the team gets fined, that’s just something I’ll have to bear.”
If Johnson is so reluc- tant to adopt the NFL’s pol- icy, why did he vote for it?
“I seriously struggled with this,” Johnson said. “You know my position on the an- them, and you have to under- stand that the plan we ended up with, due to some serious work in the [meeting] room, was vastly less onerous than the one that was presented to me late last week. In the end, I felt I had to support it from a membership standpoint.”
The All-Pro back is report- edly seeking $17M a year from the Steelers.
Bell, 26, is coming off a 2017 season where he recorded 1,946 total yards from scrim- mage and 11 touchdowns. He was just franchise-tagged by the Steelers for the second straight year, this time for $14.5M, and has until July 16 to come to a long-term agree- ment with the team.
Last offseason, Bell held out for the entirety of training camp and didn’t report to the team until Sept. 1, just in time for the season opener. We could be in for a similiar endgame again this year, espe- cially since $17M per year would make by far him the highest-paid running back in the NFL. However, some indi- cations are that the Steelers may be willing to give him what he wants.
Many NFL teams have tried to push the narrative that Colin Kaepernick re- mains unsigned because he is not a fit for certain systems or is simply not a good enough player, but a poll the NFL paid to conduct last year may tell a different story.
The NFL hired a firm in Washington to gauge the public’s opinion on whether or not Kaepernick should be signed by a team. The poll, which was conducted by a firm co-founded by then-NFL communications chief Joe Lockhart, collected data on some of the polarizing topics surrounding the league in- cluding domestic violence, player protests, player safety and gambling. Kaepernick was reportedly the only player who was mentioned by
name.
As you might expect,
Robinson was told by sources that the poll revealed a majority of white NFL fans, Republican fans and Baby Boomers supported disciplin- ing players who took part in national anthem protests. Fans who identified as African-American, Latino, Democratic, Generation Xers or Millennials largely did not.
The poll may be very rele- vant to Kaepernick’s ongo- ing collusion case, as it was conducted just months before NFL commissioner Roger Goodell released a memo stating that the league be- lieves everyone should stand for the national anthem. Kaepernick filed his formal complaint days after that memo went out.
Seeking $17M A
Year From Steelers
Le’Veon Bell is not at- tending OTAs for the sec- ond year in a row, and the dollar signs in his eyes may be even big- ger this time around.
LE’VEON BELL
PAGE 14 FLORIDA SENTINEL BULLETIN PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY AND FRIDAY TUESDAY, MAY 29, 2018