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How will NFL owners answer to league addressing social concerns? (1: 47)
Louis Riddick says it is pivotal for the NFL and its fan bases to listen to team owners answer to avid gamers, coaches and executives addressing social concerns on the league’s platform. (1: 47)
3: 22 PM ET
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Sarah BarshopESPN Crew Creator
- Covered the Packers for ESPN Milwaukee
- Marquette University graduate
HOUSTON — Houston Texans head coach and basic manager Bill O’Brien says he’ll purchase a knee all the draw during the national anthem subsequent season with his avid gamers to yell racial inequality and police brutality.
“Yeah, I could purchase a knee — I’m fascinated by it,” O’Brien told the Houston Chronicle. “The avid gamers bear a stunning to yell, a stunning to be heard and a stunning to be who they’re. They are possible to be no longer taking a knee because they’re in opposition to our flag. They’re taking a knee because they haven’t been treated equally in this country for over 400 years.”
Earlier in the week, O’Brien attended George Floyd’s funeral, along with team proprietor Cal McNair and lots of different avid gamers, together with J.J. Watt. Floyd, a 46-twelve months-ragged sad man from Houston, died final month in Minneapolis after Derek Chauvin, a white police officer, kneeled on his neck for more than eight minutes.
Final week, O’Brien spoke at length about Floyd’s dying and the suppose of lumber members of the family in the United States, asserting, “We all need to stand up and bear in mind the truth that what is occurring in this country dazzling now might possibly be unpleasant.”
In 2017, O’Brien used to be supportive when the huge majority of Texans avid gamers took a knee after then-team proprietor Bob McNair acknowledged in an owners meeting, “We can not bear the inmates working the detention center,” in reference to player demonstrations and protests all the draw during the national anthem.
“With regards to the avid gamers’ dazzling to explicit themselves, I’m constantly for that,” O’Brien acknowledged in March 2018. “I ponder the avid gamers in this league, the avid gamers on our team, they bear got expert, lustrous opinions on what’s occurring socially in the arena.”
O’Brien told the Chronicle he thinks the Texans’ group — led by the McNair family — is “attempting to uncover ways to fight racial injustice in this country.”
“It wasn’t a awake effort,” O’Brien told the Chronicle referring to the Texans’ response to Floyd’s dying. “It wasn’t esteem we had a dialog together and determined to affect it. I ponder we correct acknowledged ample is ample, and now we bear got to affect what’s dazzling. As a firm, we’re part of the dialog, and we favor to affect our part.”
