Tim Benz: If NFL players' message about kneeling gets ‘hijacked,’ options exist

If athletes who kneel during the national anthem want their message against police brutality to be more firmly understood by a wider swath of America, they may want to try a different approach.

Because the same script which led to a redirection of that message is playing out exactly as it did in 2017.

Last weekend, President Donald Trump renewed his angst against athletes who kneel during the anthem, saying he wouldn’t watch any sports where the players stage such a protest.

It’s not a stretch to believe Trump was suggesting to his supporters that they follow his lead.

I won’t be watching much anymore! https://t.co/s8nCg9EJSW

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 13, 2020

And it looks like the NFL is heading in that direction also, but not with me watching! https://t.co/aGfBaK7RNA

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 13, 2020

Three years ago, Trump ramped up the heat against NFL players who decided to kneel in support of Colin Kaepernick’s protests by calling out the league during a rally in Alabama.

“Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, you’d say, ‘Get that son of a b—— off the field right now. Out! He’s fired,” Trump said back on Sept. 23, 2017.

Prior to the event, the kneeling movement was a steady undercurrent and talking point. Then Trump’s rally ratcheted that debate into the stratosphere.

And, as you may recall, the Steelers were at the center of it for how their “butchered” anthem statement was handled in Chicago.

The context of when — and why — Trump did that in 2017 is important today.

Remember, he was deep in the “Little Rocket Man” controversy with Kim Jong Un at that point. Tensions were escalating with North Korea. And he was catching heat for how things were being handled.

So, what did Trump do? What he always does. He gave his electoral base something else to focus on.

And there’s nothing Trump’s base likes more than symbols. Flags. Eagles. Anthems. Statues.

He chummed the water with Old Glory, and suddenly North Korea was an afterthought. Instead Kaepernick and his kneeling supporters were cast as collective public enemy number one.

Now Trump is in the midst of a pandemic, falling approval numbers, an election and social unrest. So Trump is playing the “don’t look over there, look over here” game once more.

Based on the amount of attention his recent rebuke of athletes threatening to kneel received, his strategy may be working again.

In the three years since 2017, many of the players and allies of their cause have complained that Trump “hijacked the message.” They are ticked off that the debate became more about respect for the flag, patriotism and the military, and less about the need for police reform and social injustice toward American minorities.

If the players expect that to change this fall, they are naive. It’s going to play out exactly the same way. In fact, come September of an election year, expect Trump to play that card twice as often and 10 times as loudly.

The issue Kaepernick and the players face is that they’ve never successfully been able to separate the message of the need for police reform from the anthem protest itself.

There’s a reason for that. And it’s pretty obvious.

If you kneel during the anthem while the flag is flying, people who want to be offended by that act are simply going to allow themselves to be offended by that act.

And they aren’t going to be willing to listen to the greater message.

Before you scamper to the comments section, I know. Kaepernick conferred with Retired Army Green Beret Nate Boyer about kneeling as opposed to his original plan of sitting on the bench. That advice was obviously well intended, but regardless of the source — and the publicity surrounding their meeting — some are still choosing to tune out that part of the story.

That underscores the point. If opponents of the kneeling act aren’t going to take a former Green Beret’s insights into account, they aren’t going to listen to a free agent quarterback.

In the wake of Drew Brees’ comments about the anthem on June 3, some Steelers complained that the narrative was once again being shifted away from police reform demands and into a debate about appreciation for the military and patriotism.

Indeed. Give some people a chance to do that, and … well … they are going to do that.

I’ve had readers message me in support of Kaepernick, saying that involving the flag with the protest is necessary to spark this kind of outcry — that the controversy is vital to bring attention to the cause.

OK. However, intentional controversy isn’t created unless someone else is made to feel intentionally uncomfortable. That goes with the turf. In this case, that’s the president and many of his voters. So the players who adopt that mentality can’t be surprised at the depth of discomfort they’ve created for people who disagree.

Others have told me that directing the protest at the flag as a symbol is necessary because the oppression of minorities is a systemic American problem. Thus, divorcing the two topics would be counterproductive.

Fair enough. But if you choose that argument, then don’t try to make the protesting of the anthem some kind of a nuanced act. Just say it’s protesting the flag and the song.

‘Cuz that’s what you’re doing. That’s your right. You may have a case. But don’t split hairs. If that’s your explanation, that’s what you’re doing.

The point is, if the anthem is involved, people are going to complain about the anthem. Whether the song and the flag are intended targets or not.

So what else could the players — specifically NFL players — do to keep the message on point and make it clear their protest is about civil injustice and police mistreatment? And not a slight against the military, the flag or America at large.

I dunno. How ‘bout going big and just walking off the field?

Seriously. Show up. Dress. Get on the field. Play the song. Sit. Kneel. Stand. Whatever.

When the ref says come out for the kickoff, just walk right off the field. The protest obviously wouldn’t be about the flag then. That’d be a commitment to the message for sure.

I mean, some NBA players are talking about failing to reboot the whole season in the wake of the protests surrounding George Floyd’s death. The NFL players can handle one game.

Wanna take a knee in the game instead of before it? That’d work.

Admittedly, this is a different tone, but when NBA players orchestrated dribbling out the shot clock in honor of Kobe Bryant’s death, I found that to be an extremely emotional gesture. Maybe each team kneels away their first possession of the first game of the season.

The PGA’s Charles Schwab Challenge over the weekend stopped at 8:46 a.m., in recognition of the 8 minutes and 46 seconds a police officer knelt on George Floyd’s neck in Minneapolis.

Given the way a game clock works in football, it may be tough to time-up such an orchestrated halt precisely. But each team could refuse to take the field for 8 minutes and 46 seconds before the first quarter starts.

Maybe you think all those ideas are stupid. Maybe they are.

Come up with another option, then. I’m listening.

I listened in 2017, too. And what I heard was a large segment of the fan base yelling back instead of listening to the message the players wanted to project.

The players inclined to kneel probably disagree with me. Perhaps they think doing anything besides kneeling during the anthem is going to look like a capitulation at this point.

I understand.

What I can assure you of, though, is that there’s a difference between making a point … and trying to win an argument.

If the symbolic aspect of the anthem is removed from the equation, maybe the more important point about police reform will actually heard by those who otherwise wouldn’t listen.

Those that need to hear it the most.