QUINTIN JAMES
Assistant Sports Editor
The annual NFL owners meetings were held in Orlando last week, and there were a lot of things up for discussion between the owners after this season. Some of the things discussed in the meetings were targeting calls and catching rules, among others.
New rules were approved, like officials now having the opportunity to eject players after a replay, another new catch rule and eliminating the requirement that a team who scores a winning touchdown at the end of regulation has to kick the extra point or go for two.
The national anthem situation seemed to be still unsolved.
The owners all discussed the national anthem protests and other social justice messages at the owner meetings, but no policy was created or voted on. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell wouldn’t comment on the topic, but said the owners would discuss it further at the May meetings.
Goodell says he wants to listen to the players to come up with a solution. Many of the owners at the meetings expressed the same feeling to reporters.
NFL teams did unanimously agree to create a local matching funds component to social justice platforms, but discussion on the national anthem is still in the beginning stages.
One of the reasons the NFL is finding it hard to deal with this national anthem situation is the fact that the owners aren’t even on the same page as to what the NFL should do.
While owners like Jerry Jones (Cowboys), Robert Kraft (Patriots) and Bob McNair (Texans) want their teams and the league to stand for the anthem and have rules in place supporting that, Jets owner Christopher Johnson is opposed to it and would want the players to express themselves freely.
“I can’t speak to how other people run their teams, but I just think that trying to forcibly get the players to shut up is a fantastically bad idea,” said Johnson.
The owners will look to compromise, as many owners are not on board with forcing their players to stand for the national anthem. One of the options discussed was requiring players to stand for the national anthem if they were on the field or stay in the locker room until after the anthem.
As the NFL tries to find a solution to their national anthem problem, the next meeting in May will most likely be the time when a rule or compromise is made with the owners and players. This topic is very important to a lot of the players, and the protests and news surrounding the anthem the last two years have given the NFL a black eye.
The NFL will look to clean up after itself as quickly as possible, but now that the owners know the players are serious about this, this rule, if approved, will be heavily examined before enacted.