Two former NFL who were key players in the 2017 national anthem protests nearly fought before today’s game.
During the coin toss, officials had to separate Philadelphia Eagles safety Malcolm Jenkins and Carolina Panthers safety Eric Reid when their pre-game argument escalated. Their dispute centered on the NFL Players Coalition. The coalition is an ad-hoc organization that needed the NFL to end the national anthem protests if the league donated $90 million to social inequality causes. In May, NFL announced that they had finalized the partnership. However, it is unclear if they have started to disburse the money.
Reid (one of the first players to join Kaepernick’s kneeling protests), called the coalition a NFL-funded subversion group. He was out of football and sued the NFL for collusion until very recently signing with the Panthers. Reid felt that accepting the money would represent a sell-out of player values. He reportedly left the coalition as founder Jenkins excluded Kaepernick. He also asked players to stop protesting the anthem if the NFL donated.
As per Black Sports Online, Reid said that Malcolm texted me this morning asking if he would be comfortable ending the demonstrations if the NFL made a donation. At that point, that was the last straw for him. Malcolm and Reid agreed on multiple participants for the NFL conversations instead of Malcolm alone.
According to Reid, Malcolm did not stand by his word or communicate an agreement with the NFL for ending the protest. Reid also claimed that Jenkins doesn’t protest during the national anthem despite the fact that Jenkins has frequently raised a fist during the song.
He said that they communicated these concerns to him several times and have had many phone calls about it. He added that their concerns were not reflected with how the NFL runs the organization. So he felt like he needed to make a departure from it.
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