Rooney's take on the new rule

http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/...l-anthem-policy-protests/stories/201805240167

Hopefully this will settle down and have everybody get back to football.

 

Regarding the Steelers, as I have stated, I do not see it becoming an issue.


The rest of the league however? That is a different set of circumstances.

 

This is the advantage of having an exceptionally well run team.

 

No surprises here. Should be a non-issue in Pittsburgh.

 

No one's really going to care until a flag flies that's questionable and loses a team a game.

 

Incidentally, this stuff had very little to do with ratings dropping; the following did much more so:

1.) the wages people make vs. how expensive it is to go to games. The greed of the NFL finally found its bounds. I know, ratings would not take a hit just because less go to games, but it's part of the fan disconnect. Where fans once firmly "supported" their team, a larger % have the attitude of "screw 'em" - "the owners don't care about us middle class folk, why should we care about their team."

2.) A higher % of "millenials" equals a higher % of people who just don't care about mainstream sports. They just don't.

3.) Shoving military glamorization down our throats. This is the one they will never admit. But it was obvious at the draft they figured out that whole propaganda selling war was experiencing a backlash; once bloated with military hero worship, they scaled that way back in the 2018 draft. Way back. And I am good friends with some who did multiple tours in Iraq and Afg. and they too feel the NFL/govt. shoving the glamorization of it down our throats is total bull kaka.

 

Yup, no way they'll screw this up.

 

The team had it right. AV has since apologized for “throwing his teammates under the bus, unintentionally”. It’s pretty much a non issue now.

 

Do you think it's a non-issue to AV? He did the right thing by taking the field that day, anything he said after that was damage control.

Apparently things had changed since the previous season:
"I know all of our players will be standing out of respect for their teammate, Alejandro Villanueva," Tomlin said.

 

This I think puts some clarity to where they are?:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.usatoday.com/amp/702056001

 

I don't think that article clears up anything. I think it was AV doing damage control because he's a team player and didn't want to cause a stir, but he also didn't want to stay in the locker room for the National Anthem. I don't think the owners new policy, the 'out of sight out of mind' approach, will help anything either.

 

You may be correct, only time will tell. For me, my gut feel is that it is anon issue in Steeler land.

I also feel Bell holding out as he will is also a non issue team unity wise.

 

I'd prefer throwing water coolers and mean tweets over these issues any day.