I am not sure what Jerry Jones endgame is here. Maybe he believes Trump is going to be even more powerful and wants to make a lifelong ally out of him, but whatever the case making himself the face of anti-protest isn’t going to endear him to a lot of players.
He is still the one main owner who is pushing for punishment and a hard set rule for players to stand for the anthem according to Yahoo Sports.
As other owners whisked through the lobby to their black car services and headed for private jets, Jones had vanished.
Instead, Jones took the side exit and played the outlier, which turned out to be his consistent path in these fall NFL meetings.
Jerry taking the side exit on the entire issue for now, lest he blow up the progress that his fellow billionaires feel they are achieving.
That’s where the anthem debate has seemed to have settled, without a vote on standards and practices – and most certainly without a unanimous front. Thanks in large part to Jones, who is dug in deep and still not in favor of changing how he does business.
You only needed to hear the language at the end of the meetings to understand where Jones stands now – on an island, left alone as the only team owner inclined to discipline players for any form of protest during the anthem. So much so that when New York Giants co-owner John Mara shared sweeping optimism over the meetings, he couldn’t speak without a clause in the mix. The Jerry Jones holdout clause.
In a nutshell, most owners except Jones were happy where the meetings with players went. Almost every owner except Jones was OK with the lack of hardened rules regarding protests. And just about every team could see a positive direction forward, aside from the Cowboys.
The NFL would also like to disengage from President Donald Trump’s weekly political agenda, which has consistently taken shots at the league and its players. Jones has not only opened the door for Trump to assail the league, but he has become an instrument of those attacks by aligning himself with that agenda.
Jones still believes that players can and should be disciplined for protesting during the anthem. And if it happens in his franchise, he’s still capable of following through on a threat that would unravel everything and draw the NFL into a potential legal war.
Jones has made his choice and that choice is to lie in bed with Donald Trump.
He has also made his players for lack of a better term look like property and just black bodies to make him billions. Jones says he is only thinking about business, but he doesn’t see how this is likely to affect the Cowboys in the long run as I have spoken to multiple players who says they look at Jones in a much different lens now.
Flip the page for video of a man explaining to Jones he is a white supremacist…