Giants co-owner Steve Tisch told The Hollywood Reporter this week that Giants players who demonstrate against police brutality and systemic racism during pregame national anthem ceremonies will not be punished by the organization, whatever ultimately happens to the NFL’s increasingly dumb-looking anthem rule:
“We support our players,” Tisch said. “They are not going to be punished. There is not going to be any punitive action taking place against them.”
Tisch also took the opportunity to jab at President Trump, for having his priorities all screwed up:
“Hopefully he’ll have much more going on that he’s going to have to deal with and should deal with and must deal with than worrying about what NFL players do,” Tisch told The Hollywood Reporter on Tuesday night at the premiere of The Equalizer 2 (Tisch is a producer of the film). “He has no understanding of why they take a knee or why they’re protesting. When the new season starts, I hope his priorities are not criticizing the NFL and telling owners what to do and what not to do.”
Yes, you can start the clock on President Trump tweeting something about the Giants turning their backs on their fans or disrespecting the troops or something equally disingenuous and dumb, but that only matters if, like NFL owners themselves, you can be fooled into thinking that the issue here is the NFL versus Donald Trump, or that anything NFL owners could do on this issue could stop Trump from hammering away at it. All owners have accomplished on this front is conflict with players, and the embarrassment of backing away from their new “compromise” policy the second a team signals its intention to enforce an anthem rule.
It’s almost like, hmm, yes, hastily scratching together a half-assed rule without the support of players or the unanimous buy-in of owners in order to placate a senile shit-for-brains huckster who will not under any circumstances back off the issue was a bad idea, right from the jump.