Joe Nicholson-USA TODAY Sports
Drew Brees found an ally, but it is not one who will put him back in the good graces of his teammates.
The star Saints quarterback, two days after inciting massive backlash for again conflating Colin Kaepernick’s protest against police brutality for a protest against the American flag and one day after apologizing for it, got some predictable support from a president who is probably not admired by the New Orleans teammates who ripped Brees.
“I am a big fan of Drew Brees,” Donald Trump wrote on Twitter. “I think he’s truly one of the greatest quarterbacks, but he should not have taken back his original stance on honoring our magnificent American Flag. OLD GLORY is to be revered, cherished, and flown high.
“We should be standing up straight and tall, ideally with a salute, or a hand on heart. There are other things you can protest, but not our Great American Flag – NO KNEELING!”
“No kneeling” said the president, referring to a knee out of protest in a movement Kaepernick popularized, and not referring to “no kneeling” on a black man’s neck. Minneapolis police knelt on George Floyd’s neck for more than eight minutes, Floyd dying in police custody and protests following in every US state.
The condemnation of the act and the acceptance that the abuses Kaepernick & Co. protested are real have led to a reckoning in the country, even brands and teams striving to say nothing at all finding it now acceptable to acknowledge systemic racism is very much a part of the United States. Brees mostly found sympathy in criticizing kneeling during the national anthem since it originated. This time he found fury from people like Malcolm Jenkins, Jerick McKinnon and Richard Sherman.
We would not advise Brees to point out to those players that Trump endorsed his original message.