Best Solution to the NFL’s National Anthem Problem? Scrap it.

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Earlier today, the NFL released its new policy regarding player and team participation during the National Anthem. The guidelines are as follows:

1. All team and league personnel on the field shall stand and show respect for the flag and the anthem.

2.The Game Operations Manual will be revised to remove the requirement that all players be on the field for the anthem.

3. Personnel who choose not to stand for the anthem may stay in the locker room or in a similar location off the field until after the anthem has been performed.

4. A club will be fined by the League if its personnel are on the field and do not stand and show respect for the flag and the anthem.

5. Each club may develop its own work rules, consistent with the above principles, regarding its personnel who do not stand and show respect for the flag and the anthem.

6. The commissioner will impose appropriate discipline on league personnel who do not stand and show respect for the flag and the anthem.

The compromise that the NFL believes they have struck is that players are welcome to protest the anthem (which in itself is a problematic framing) so long as they do so in the locker room. Otherwise, if they are present for the anthem, they must stand and conduct themselves in a way which will “show respect for the flag.” Consequences for any transgression of the ambiguous guidance will include fines to the team of the offending player, as well as any punishment franchises would like to levee. Perhaps more saliently, considering the commissioner’s suspension trigger finger, item 6 notes that “the commissioner will impose appropriate discipline” on those who do not respect the flag. Such an example of consequences is noted by The Ringer’s Danny Heifetz, who writes:

Prior to this week, teams had no explicit basis to fire players who kneel during the anthem, so the NFL invented one. Now, players who kneel during the anthem will cost their teams money, thereby giving owners all the pretense they need to fire (or decline to hire) those who “disrespect the flag.”

Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer also notes on Twitter:

This new policy by the NFL can, and should, be read as arbitrary guidance giving arbitrary powers to a single arbiter to level arbitrary punishments over arbitrary offenses.

“Get that son of a bitch off the field right now”; How we got here:

In a campaign rally in Huntsville, Alabama September 22, 2017, for Alabama Republican primary Senate candidate Luther Strange, Trump went into a tangetial tirade against the NFL. Trump said “Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now. Out! He’s fired. He’s fired!’” He went on to attribute sliding TV ratings for the NFL in 2016 and to that point in 2017 to the anthem protests.

(It cannot go without note that Donald Trump is a begrudged party against the NFL, due to his failed bid to buy the Buffalo Bills in 2014 as well as his failed USFL experiment, moving the league from a spring schedule to a fall schedule to compete with the NFL rather than compliment it as its founder, David Dixon, intended. This pretty much single-handedly ruined the burgeoning pro-football league.)

Trump’s comments, as they were meant to do, set off a media firestorm and gained the attention of NFL players. All eyes were in London for the Sunday morning game between the Jacksonville Jaguars and the Baltimore Ravens with expectations that there would be increased protests. The Ravens did not disappoint, with five players as well as Hall of Famer Ray Lewis kneeling during the anthem.

This conflict carried on, with Vice President and former Indiana Governor, Mike Pence, leaving an Indianapolis Colts game before the game started due to players not standing for the anthem. Trump later revealed in a tweet that he was on the one who had asked Pence to leave if players happened to protest. It was nakedly a political stunt, an expensive one at the costs of taxpayers once one considers the cost of security and transportation, as there was no reasonable expectation that players would not be kneeling.

The NFL, as it often does, floundered for a response. Commissioner Goodell held a press conference on October 18, 2017, saying:

“We believe everyone should stand for the national anthem — that’s an important part of our policy. It’s also an important part of our game that we all take great pride in. And it’s also important for us to honor our flag and our country, and we think our fans expect us to do that. So that is something we continue to focus on this morning but really talking a lot about the opportunity that exists for our players to try to go and really make a difference in our communities in a positive way.”

This word salad went mostly unaddressed, as President Trump had new concerns arise twelve days later when his former campaign manager Paul Manafort was indicted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, appointed to investigate Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and any Russian collusion.

However, today’s news was greeted warmly by Vice President Pence:

Why Do We Have the National Anthem Before Sporting Events, Anyway?

The folks at Axios did a great job of a simple timeline, so I’m just going to block quote it while including their hyperlinks. Does that work? Deadpool 2 just came out we’re doing some 4th wall breaking. Here:

  • 1814: Francis Scott Key wrote the Star Spangled Banner, while watching the bombardment of Fort McHenry in Baltimore.
  • 1916: President Woodrow Wilson signed an executive order declaring the “Star Spangled Banner” the American national anthem.
  • 1918: The song was played spontaneously during the seventh-inning stretch of game one of the World Series between the Cubs and Red Sox, while the country had been in World War I for a year and half. After this, the song was often played on holidays or special occasions in many baseball parks.
  • 1931: Congress passed an act officially confirming the “Star Spangled Banner” as the national anthem, and President Hebert Hoover signed it into law.
  • 1941-42: Playing the national anthem before the start of regular season baseball games became the standard. And with the U.S. in World War II now, the National Football League also included the playing of the anthem before games.
  • 1945: NFL commissioner Elmer Layden said, “The playing of the national anthem should be as much a part of every game as the kickoff. We must not drop it simply because the war is over. We should never forget what it stands for.”
  • 2009: NFL players began standing on the field for the national anthem before the start of primetime games. Before this, players would stay in their locker rooms except during the Super Bowl and after 9/11.
  • 2015: Senators John McCain and Jeff Flake released a report revealing that the Department of Defense had spent $6.8 million between 2012 and 2015 on what the senators called “paid patriotism” events before professional sports games, including American flag displays, honoring of military members, re-enlistment ceremonies, etc. The DOD justified the money paid to 50 professional sports teams by calling it part of their recruiting strategy. However, many teams had these ceremonies without compensation from the military, and there was nothing found in the contracts that mandated that players stand during the anthem.

A few points to dwell on:  Standing on the field for the National Anthem has only been a thing for nine years. According to the Huffington Post’s reporting, the US Department of Defense between 2012-2015 spent $53 million of taxpayer money on advertising contracts with sports teams, including $6.8 million for things deemed “inappropriate.” According to the Senate Report by Senators McCain and Flake as cited by HuffPo, “Americans deserve the ability to assume that tributes for our men and women in military uniform are genuine displays of national pride, which many are, rather than taxpayer-funded DOD marketing gimmicks.”

It’s as if these military tributes are performative cynical marketing ploys rather than genuine displays of support for our armed service members.

The Meat & Potatoes: Why it’s Better to Not Bother at All

Funny enough, the reasons not to do it aren’t all that complicated because it’s so obvious. All that setup for this:

It’s a Farce:

It’s not about patriotism. Maybe it once was, but it isn’t anymore. See above.

Wouldn’t it just be easier not to bother punishing people?

The NFLPA has already stated they were going to review these rules against the CBA and challenge it where they can. Imagine if someone is actually punished based on these guidelines in all of their vague glory? Who determines what proper respect for the flag is? Roger Goodell?

Below, a brief and incomplete list of investigations and court battles relating to such Goodell judgment calls.

  • Bountygate:  Summer 2010 – December 2012
  • Ray Rice domestic violence:  February 2014 – December 2014
  • Adrian Peterson domestic violence: November 2014 – August 2016
  • Deflategate:  January 2015 – July 2016
  • Kaepernick Anthem Protest/Collusion/New Guidelines:  September 2016 – Present

During each of these investigations, Goodell inflicted pain and shame upon the league. Bountygate, ruled before the facts were clear. Ray Rice, far too lenient and tried to cover up. Adrian Peterson, far too harsh. Deflategate tried to make up for being too light on Spygate. Now he is continuing the pain with the Kaepernick protests. Perhaps these constant controversies, not to mention the whole concussions thing, have more to do with ratings slipping than anthem protests.

Believe me, the first player punished under these new guidelines is going to appeal and go through a similar legal slog that Ray Rice, Adrian Peterson, and Tom Brady dragged them though. Why bother? We had almost forgotten about all of this.

Is it Really Respectful to Follow the National Anthem With This?

Everyone Sucks at it Anyway

There have been three good performances of the National Anthem ever.

  1. Jimi Hendrix – Woodstock, 1969

  1. Whitney Houston, Super Bowl XXV 1991

  1. Beyoncé, President Barack Obama’s second term inauguration

(Yes, this one was prerecorded, but it is beautiful, here is a live one from the Super Bowl XXXVIII, you savages…)

Note that only two of those three performances were sung, and two of those three performers are dead. I’m willing to hear arguments that this entire premise should be amended to: “Let’s just do the Star Spangled Banner when Beyoncé is available.”

The Star Spangled Banner is a notoriously difficult song to sing, even for excellent singers (Hi, Christina Aguilera). Below is an excerpt from Kathryn Hardy from the Smithsonian explaining why:

I interviewed Kenneth Slowik, the Director of the Smithsonian Chamber Music Society.

“It has a lot to do with the range,” he said. “It’s a very wide range. Basically, the notes are very high.” Okay, fair enough, but how high are we talking?

“High f—it’s traditionally sung in Bb major because going higher than that makes it hard for the altos and basses singing to get to the high note, and going lower makes it hard for the tenors and sopranos to manage,” he said.

Educator Dan Holm, a tenor who frequently sings the Star-Spangled Banner for, and much better than, me during the Flag Folding Ceremony, agrees, “I’m always practicing the first part of the song to make sure I’m low enough, but still starting in a comfortable place so I can hit both the high and very lowest note. If I don’t, I just switch the octave I’m singing in.”

All of that said, is this really respectful to the flag?

No, I’m not posting the Fergie video. Oh hell, here it is.

It’s Kind of a Racist Song Anyway

As previously noted, it is challenging to sing. But beyond the first stanza, the song is super racist.

Per Jason Johnson at The Root:

“No one remembers that he [Francis Scott Key, writer of “The Star Spangled Banner”] wrote a full third stanza decrying the former slaves who were now working for the British army:

“And where is that band who so vauntingly swore,
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion
A home and a Country should leave us no more?
Their blood has wash’d out their foul footstep’s pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave,
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.”

In other words, Key was saying that the blood of all the former slaves and “hirelings” on the battlefield will wash away the pollution of the British invaders. With Key still bitter that some black soldiers got the best of him a few weeks earlier, “The Star-Spangled Banner” is as much a patriotic song as it is a diss track to black people who had the audacity to fight for their freedom. Perhaps that’s why it took almost 100 years for the song to become the national anthem.”

Gee, why wouldn’t a league whose players are 80-percent black want to stand for this?

Just Scrap It

We are left with new rules that are questionable legally to defend standing for a song that no one sings well, is probably racist, and only serves to provide patriotic cover to a league with domestic violence and concussion issues. What do we do?

Well, we could pick a new song. My personal nomination, if we’re really leaning into this whole jingoistic nationalism thing is:

Here is my non-snarky answer:  Let’s use the money for these fighter-jet flyovers and taxpayer funded hero tributes for voter registration booths in every stadium, and volunteers walking with clipboards during halftime.

Otherwise, unless Beyoncé is available, we can do without the National Anthem.