New England Patriots: Two former Patriots upset with NFL’s new anthem policy
By Sam Minton
After the NFL released it’s new anthem policy, two former New England Patriots have come out and are furious with the NFL.
The famous Wu-Tang Clan song C.R.E.A.M. may describe what’s going on in the NFL right now. For those of you who aren’t fans of classic hip-hop, the saying stands for cash rules everything around me. With fans, owners, and even the President of the United States critiquing players who took a knee, the NFL is attempting to save face (and dollars) with this new policy and two former New England Patriots aren’t happy about it.
Matt Light is about to be inducted into the Patriots hall of fame, but is livid with the NFL. Light believes that the NFL is giving players the go ahead to disrespect the men and women who risk their lives for our country.
"“What they did was issue a statement saying we respect our men and women in the armed services, while at the same time, giving their players the ability to not respect the men and women in the armed services. To me, they outlined a much worse scenario,” Light said when reached by the Herald. “Before, it was never in our handbook. In league policy, it was never OK to not stand for the national anthem. So if you really think about it, they defined the right to not stand for the national anthem. It wasn’t that way before. In reality, they’ve literally defined, by policy, that guys can openly disrespect the men and women in our armed services by staying in the locker room.“It’s unfortunate. Look, you can’t make everyone happy. When you try to do that, you look terrible and you alienate a lot of people and it backfires every time.”"
An incompetent commish
Damien Woody spent five years in New England. Like Light, he played offensive line and the two agree that the NFL messed up with its new policy, but Woody is upset with the lack of input from the players.
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"To me, this is so crazy. The league doesn’t know how to get in front of things. They’ll never learn,” he said. “You can’t call the players partners, and not include them in this process. To me, it’s baffling. How can you call them partners, and then they’re not involved? You’re inviting guys to pull some type of antics next season.“I look at this whole thing and think, ‘What are you doing?’’’ he continued. “Every game, everyone is going to be looking to see who’s protesting, who’s in the locker room? You’re just drawing attention back to this whole issue again. That’s all you’re doing. That’s going to be the talk once football season starts. So as a league, you didn’t put out any fires, you just added more gasoline to it.”"
I think one thing that everyone can agree on is that Roger Goodell is a terrible commissioner. The protest last season did their job. They sparked a conversation, and enacted change in people’s communities. So much so that most players said they had no plans of protesting until the new anthem policy was announced.
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Now all eyes will be focused on what is happening before the game and not during it. Just when the fire was dying down, Roger Goodell decided to dump some gasoline on it. As Light would say “It’s just classic NFL . . . and it’s classic Roger Goodell.”