NFL Player Changes His Mind About Quitting if Not Allowed to Protest

Tennessee Titans wide receiver Rishard Matthews made headlines when earlier in the week he said that he would sooner quit the NFL rather than be forced to stand for the national anthem.

Matthews’ declaration came as a shock considering that his own brother was a member of the military who was killed in Afghanistan and that spitting on the flag would somehow honor his memory were he to make his political statement during NFL games.

Significant response here from @_RMatthews, since deleted. #Titans. (Now tagging correct address.) pic.twitter.com/5bvlwpKRWx

— Paul Kuharsky (@PaulKuharskyNFL) October 12, 2017

Now Matthews is claiming that it was all just a big misunderstanding and that his kneeling and Black Panther fist-thrusting isn’t more important than his obscene paycheck for playing a game.

Perhaps he had second thoughts about his brother but it’s hard to see how the prospect of having to actually go out and work for a living wasn’t his primary motivation in issuing an apology.

https://twitter.com/TenneTitansRR/status/918940446356918272

Via the Nashville Tennessean “Titans’ Rishard Matthews backtracks from tweet he’d quit NFL rather than stand for anthem”:

Titans wide receiver Rishard Matthews backtracked on Friday from a comment he tweeted and deleted a day earlier, when he wrote that he’d retire from football if the NFL passed a rule forcing players to stand for the national anthem.

“Look, in regards to the tweet I sent out, I’m a man, and sometimes you make bad decisions at the wrong time,” Matthews said after practice Friday, “and at that time I made a bad decision to tweet that out, at that given moment.”

Does he stand by the statement?

“Not right now,” Matthews said. “Let’s hope it doesn’t get to that. I know the owners got a meeting next (week). Let’s just hope we don’t get to that.”

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell is meeting with league owners on Tuesday and Wednesday in New York, where players protesting social inequality and police brutality during the national anthem will be among the topics of discussion. The NFL Players’ Association has been invited to attend.

AND

Matthews, while responding to a question proposed on Twitter by a local TV producer on Thursday, said he would step away from football if the NFL implements a new rule requiring players to stand for the national anthem.

Matthews, who remained in the tunnel for the singing of the anthem for the second consecutive game Sunday at Miami, quickly deleted his tweet. But WSMV Channel 4 posted a screengrab of the response.

The question posed to Matthews: “If NFL makes new rule on anthem.. will you still stay in locker room and face the fine/penalty?”

Matthews, in the now deleted tweet wrote: “No I will be done playing football.”

All talk and no action which is usually the case with these mouthy prima donnas when they are forced to back up their words.

Matthews, like his fellow malcontents, are staking their hopes on this week’s big pow-wow between NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and the player’s union in which the commish is expected to offer up some form of appeasement – perhaps even setting aside a week or so to honor “social activism” (translation: hating on the police) to sooth the hurt feelings of the kneelers.

It should be noted that Matthews played for the University of Nevada in college where he caught passes from a guy named Colin Kaepernick so his bias is now on the record.