Hue Jackson Doesn’t Want His Players Protesting

In regards to his team, Cleveland Browns head coach Hue Jackson wants the focus to remain on football. Amid all the drama going on around the league and the country relating to protesting and who’s right and who’s wrong, Jackson wants his players concentrating on the task at hand. When it comes to players protesting during the playing of the National Anthem, Jackson said he respects the position of some NFL players in their decision to sit rather than stand, but doesn’t necessarily want anyone on his team participating in those demonstrations.

“I think everybody has a right to do, and I get it, but the National Anthem means a lot to myself personally, the organization and our football team,” Jackson said when asked about anthem protests re-emerging in the NFL following the events in Charlottesville, Virginia, this past weekend.

Jackson, who said he hasn’t spoken to his team about the issue, hopes that the matter doesn’t become a distraction for his players. And a team that won just one football game last season following a year in which it only won three games, cannot afford to have such distractions festering in from the periphery. The focus of the organization, an organization in clear rebuilding mode, needs to be on football and nothing else despite whatever pressure might be felt by some of its players to act a certain way based on what is going on around the league.

Following the actions taken by now free-agent quarterback Colin Kaepernick last season, Seattle Seahawks defensive end Michael Bennett and Oakland Raiders running back Marshawn Lynch chose not to stand for the anthem during their respective team’s last preseason games.

Bennett said he is going to use his platform to speak on injustice and Lynch acknowledged that he has been sitting during the anthem for years.

One reason why Hue Jackson doesn’t want his players to involve themselves in the demonstrations is because he’s probably unsure how they might handle the media circus that will arrive in their lockeroom as a result of this type of demonstration. Michael Bennett refusing to stand up for the anthem is an entirely different situation. The Seattle Seahawks possess strong veteran leadership on both sides of the ball and have a recent Super Bowl championship to their credit. On top of that, they have had to deal with their share of team turmoil over the last few years with various defensive players supposedly being critical of various offensive players and the team’s overall offensive production. In all likelihood, they are better equipped to handle a distraction of this magnitude than the Cleveland Browns, a team that is trying to build for the future. In the case of Marshawn Lynch, whether he sat down to protest or just sat down because he’s been doing it for years, his team, the Oakland Raiders, is coming off of a 12-4 season and expected to make a big splash in the playoffs this season behind their brilliant young quarterback, Derek Carr. So, they should be able to brush aside a potential distraction such as this and just plow ahead.

Hue Jackson did make it clear that, while he wishes the problems of the world do get ironed out, he would like to keep those problems separate from his young team as the singular thing on his mind is helping his team improve its play on the field.

“I understand there is a lot going on in the world. I like to just keep it here. What we deal with, we try to deal with as a team in our closed environment. We talk about things,” he said in a statement on Monday, before adding, “Hopefully, that won’t happen. I can’t tell you it won’t happen, but I just know our guys, and I don’t think that is where our focus is.”

[Featured Image by Jason Miller/Getty Images]