About 30 National Football League owners, players, and executives held a confidential meeting in October to discuss player protests during the national anthem, The New York Times reported.
The meeting was in reaction to the protests and President Donald Trump’s reaction to them, which had leveled an unprecedented amount of hostility toward the football league, the report said.
The Times obtained an audio recording of the meeting, which lasted around three hours, and several of those who attended corroborated the meeting’s details.
Players wanted to focus on Colin Kaepernick, the quarterback that some players believed was being blackballed by owners after he started the anthem protests as a way to put a spotlight on racial injustice and police violence against African-Americans.
"If he was on a roster right now, all this negativeness and divisiveness could be turned into a positive," Philadelphia Eagles defensive lineman Chris Long said at the meeting, The Times reported.
The owners were noncommittal on that topic. The owner of the Eagles, Jeffrey Lurie, said that fighting for social justice was not "about one person."
Robert K. Kraft, the owner of the New England Patriots, said that kneeling as part of anthem protests was problematic. "We have a president who will use that as fodder to do his mission that I don’t feel is in the best interests of America… it’s divisive and it’s horrible," said Kraft, a longtime supporter of Trump’s.
Owners said they wanted to avoid continuing criticism from the president, and Lurie called Trump’s presidency “disastrous,” The Times reported.
"We’ve got to be careful not to be baited by Trump or whomever else. We have to find a way to not be divided and not get baited,” the Eagles owner said.
Houston Texans owner Bob McNair called on players to tell their colleagues to, essentially, stop kneeling. "You fellas need to ask your compadres, fellas, stop that other businesses, let’s go out and do something that really produces positive results, and we’ll help you," McNair said.
Anquan Boldin, a former NFL wide receiver, said that owners needed to be spokesmen for the league, the report said.. "Letting people know it’s not just the players that care about these issues, but the owners, too."
An hour after the meeting, the league released a statement that said the owners and players discussed "how we can work together to promote positive social change and address inequality in our communities," The Times reported.
In March at the league’s annual meeting, NFL teams unanimously agreed to set up matching funds for local projects tied to social justice programs. No rules changes were proposed or announced regarding the national anthem, the NFL reported.
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