Tim Benz: Trump’s love-hate of NFL will continue for months
Share this post:
When you combine the National Football League, a pandemic, social upheaval, President Donald Trump, and an election year, you are going to see some rather odd intersections of reality.
Such was the case over the weekend.
Within the span of one tweet — and the span of 36 hours — Trump went from defending the NFL’s plan to play to slamming the league, commissioner Roger Goodell and the players over their plans to protest the national anthem.
We actually have to start back on Thursday, when Dr. Anthony Fauci told CNN, “Unless players are essentially in a bubble — insulated from the community and they are tested nearly every day — it would be very hard to see how football is able to be played this fall.
“If there is a second wave, which is certainly a possibility and which would be complicated by the predictable flu season, football may not happen this year.”
That quote from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director was a lightning strike through the sports world. Mainly because the NFL had appeared to be on a path toward starting training camps in July. It also appeared full steam ahead toward the stated goal of starting its season on time, without the bubble ideas being planned for the NBA and NHL.
Even if that means playing in empty stadiums.
Meanwhile, all the other major pro sports leagues are stuck in the mud when it comes to getting competition underway.
So Trump took to Twitter to inform us that — essentially — he told Fauci to keep his nose out of NFL business. The president even went so far as to praise the league for its attempts to start competition.
That’s not surprising since Trump has long leaned on the return of sports as an important marker on the road back to normalcy in this covid-controlled country of ours.
It’s also not surprising that Trump couldn’t get through the whole tweet without taking a swipe at the planned anthem protests from the league’s players.
Tony Fauci has nothing to do with NFL Football. They are planning a very safe and controlled opening. However, if they don’t stand for our National Anthem and our Great American Flag, I won’t be watching!!!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 19, 2020
Similarly, no one should be shocked that Trump took on the topic of kneeling at his weekend rally in Oklahoma.
“Explain this to the NFL,” Trump said. “I like the NFL. I like Roger Goodell. But I didn’t like what he said a week ago. I said, ‘Where did that come from in the middle of the summer? Nobody’s even asking.’ We will never kneel to our national anthem or our great American flag. We will stand proud, and we will stand tall. I thought we won that battle with the NFL. Their stadiums were emptying out.
Did you see those stadiums? Took them a long time to get you back. (A) lot of people didn’t like that. You know, (a) lot of people that you wouldn’t even think would care that much. I’ve had people that I said, ‘These are super-left liberals,’ and they didn’t like it.”
For you #StickToSports types out there, please understand, I’d love to do eactly that. But if you can’t see the link between restarting sports to Fauci, Trump, covid-19 and the race-related protests for police reform, then you have your head in the sand.
What Fauci says moves the needle. Not only with sports leagues and owners, but mayors and state governors where those teams are housed.
Rightly or wrongly, Fauci is often portrayed by the political left as some sort of independent beacon on Trump’s coronavirus response team.
You can disagree with whether Fauci deserves that kind of characterization, if you like. But you can’t debate if that point of view exists.
When Fauci says something positive about our country’s battle against coronavirus, left-leaning mayors, governors and media members tend to give those comments more weight than if they come from other sources within Trump’s administration.
Particularly Trump himself.
That’s why it got so much play when Fauci brought a rain cloud over the NFL’s plan to start its season without a bubble. And why Trump’s neutering of Fauci was so significant.
That’s Trump saying, “Don’t rock the boat on football, Tony. I need those games happening in the fall during the ramp up to the election.”
It’s also an indication that any future statements relating to sports and covid-19 coming from the White House will be filtered. Heavily.
Meanwhile, on the kneeling front, Trump is clearly drawing a line in the sand, saying that he’s every bit ready to reignite the flame war he started in 2017 over this topic again now that he is running for re-election.
Therefore, if you think that players are just going to ignore what Trump says on a weekly basis — especially if he gets as personal as he did three years ago — and be content with protests, then you are living on a spectrum of denial I wish I could enjoy.
Players kneeling may turn into players failing to show up. Blowing off the anthem could result in boycotting games.
Especially if Trump wins again in November.
An old adage is that “politics makes for strange bedfellows.”
Well, it doesn’t get any stranger than politics in 2020.
And right now the NFL’s biggest ally and biggest enemy is the same guy. He lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. And he’s trying to maintain residence there.
So what may seem strange now may be utterly impossible to figure out by the time training camps are supposed to open in July.
Let alone election day in November.