LeBron James and Richard Sherman are among the pack of athletes who have called out Saints quarterback Drew Brees over his comments about players who take a knee during the national anthem.
In an interview with Yahoo! Finance on Wednesday, Brees criticized players who stage pre-game protests, saying his grandfather fought to defend the U.S. He said, “I will never agree with anybody disrespecting the flag of the United States of America or our country.” Almost immediately following the interview’s publication, athletes turned out in droves on social media to say Brees has clearly missed the point. “Wow, man!” Lakers star LeBron James tweeted. “You literally still don’t understand why Kap was kneeling on one knee?? Has absolute nothing to do with the disrespect of the flag and our soldiers who keep our land free.”
Highlight: @readdanwrite asks @drewbrees what the star NFL quarterback thinks about “players kneeling again when the NFL season starts.”@drewbrees: “I will never agree with anybody disrespecting the flag of the United States of America or our country.”
Full exchange: pic.twitter.com/MpCkFyOMed
— Yahoo Finance (@YahooFinance) June 3, 2020
San Francisco 49ers cornerback Richard Sherman was a little less delicate in his criticism of Brees, writing, “He’s beyond lost. Guarantee you there were black men fighting along side your grandfather but this doesn’t seem to be about that. That uncomfortable conversation you are trying to avoid by injecting military into a conversation about brutality and equality is part of the problem.”
Do you think Brees was being malicious, or is just ill-informed? What was it about George Floyd’s death that brought this long-simmering pot to a boil?
