“We believe very strongly in patriotism in the NFL”

-NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell

The height of idiocy is a bunch of mostly black multi-millionaire professional athletes protesting the oppression of blacks in America. With the failure of the National Football League to make a strong statement after San Francisco 49er backup quarterback Colin Kaepernick dissed the flag and the police they just may have accidentally created a monster that they cannot control. As Kaepernick is becoming a demigod in the now unstoppable wave of racial unrest sweeping the nation, the entire freaking Seattle Seahawks team is hinting at a collective gesture during the national anthem of Sunday’s season opener against the Miami Dolphins.

According to The Week “The entire Seattle Seahawks team may join Colin Kaepernick’s national anthem protest”:

San Francisco quarterback Colin Kaepernick has been met with both jersey-burning and defense from the president over his decision to sit in protest during the national anthem as a means of calling attention to police brutality and racial injustice in America. After his initial gesture, Kaepernick was joined in the preseason by fellow 49er Eric Reid and Seattle Seahawks cornerback Jeremy Lane, who has said he plans to continue sitting in protest during the regular season.

But the tight-knit Seahawks team won’t let one of their members stand — or rather, sit — alone. Seattle receiver Doug Baldwin told The Seattle Times he is also considering sitting for the Star-Spangled Banner at Sunday’s opening game, and linebacker Bobby Wagner said there is talk in the locker room of making the gesture together as a team.

“Anything we want to do, it’s not going to be individual. It’s going to be a team thing. That’s what the world needs to see. The world needs to see people coming together versus being individuals,” Wagner said.

The prospect of an entire NFL team choosing to engage in protesting the national anthem and flag on the anniversary of the day when radical Islamic fanatics murdered over 3,000 people must be giving Commissioner Roger Goodell a bleeding ulcer. Goodell has now come out and tepidly voiced that there should be respect for the flag as well as emphasized that the league stood for patriotism but by not acting sooner he is going to have a hell of a time getting the toothpaste back into the tube.

It’s easy to see how Goodell was paralyzed like Jeb Bush on the debate stage because he sure as didn’t want a wave of bad publicity on the eve of the new season and feared boycotts that would hit the league where it really hurts – it’s wallet. But now the commish has the worst of all possible worlds, his victory lap after winning the long-running pissing contest with Patriots quarterback Tom Brady has been preempted by the chance of an entire team going rogue in what would be a catastrophic public relations debacle. Goodell has survived much over the last few years but such a thing may just be the straw that breaks the camel’s back for the league’s owners.

It’s hard to believe that millions of fans would be pleased with a big fuck the flag and the police day when there were so many heroic first responders were killed during the collapse of the World Trade Center and many more perished in the aftermath. But it’s his cross to bear, he should have taken a harder stance early on before it became showtime for miscreants.

The game kicks off at 4:05 pm EST this Sunday.