One day after new teammate Jordan Lucas said he “110 percent” planned to kneel during the national anthem this season, Bears players weren’t willing to say the same.
“That’s really not something I would like to answer right now,” inside linebacker Roquan Smith said in a video chat Wednesday. “You know, I think each and every individual will make their own decision.”
Cornerback Buster Skrine, though, said he agreed with Bears coach Matt Nagy’s stated goal, which is for the Bears to make a decision about protesting as a team.
“I think that’s a team decision, or what we’ll do all together,” he said. “Because on the team we’re all brothers.”
Nagy said he’s yet to discuss the topic with his bosses, but planned to in the weeks after players are dismissed from the virtual offseason program Thursday. He vowed to listen to players when they return.
Nagy wants the team will be unified in if, and how, it decides to protest. The last week has proven, though, that finding unanimity among the roster will be next-to-impossible.
After the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers, players are still sorting through their feelings — as well as if, and how, they’d plan to protest. That individual choice is antithetical to the team-first notion that coaches preach. The rub between those two concepts will spark once the season begins, though it won’t come close to the firestorm from a segment of the political sphere if players kneel.
The NFL figures to treat protestors differently this year than they did in 2016, when Colin Kaepernick began kneeling as a statement against police brutality and racial inequality. Skrine said commissioner Roger Goodell moved in the right direction when he issued a video statement Friday saying the NFL was “wrong for not listening to NFL players earlier.”
“This is the first time, I know in my lifetime, that this has occurred,” Skrine said. “So, the steps that people are taking, they’re cautious steps — because people don’t want to say or do the wrong thing. I do think steps are being made.”
Asked about the cautious steps, Skrine said it felt similar to people looking for the right words when they go to a funeral.
“I do think this is a sensitive subject to all races and all cultures,” he said. “You can’t just go out and not think about what you say before you say it.
“If it does take a little bit longer for [the NFL] to come out with a game plan, then that’s what it is. But I feel like to address the situation and to go back and say, ‘Hey, maybe we mishandled players speaking on their conditions before all this came out,’ that’s showing some changes are being made.”
Skrine said the league can educate the public because it has its rapt attention.
“Am I going to go into it angry if they don’t say anything from this day on? No, I won’t be angry,” Skrine said. “But do I think that it needs to be some attention towards what’s going on? Yeah …
“I feel like a start, just to have the talks and recognize what is going on — they’re doing the right thing.”
New tight end Demetrius Harris appreciated the team’s June 1 meeting — and its subsequent conversations — after Floyd was killed.
“I like it when everybody gets together, and it makes the whole world and the whole team powerful,” he said.
Players, though, are bound to be divided on the protest issue.
Smith said that the world at large has to put its best foot forward.
“It takes a change,” Smith said. “Each and every individual has to look themselves in the mirror and say, ‘Are they a part of the change or are they a part of the problem?’ I think it’s that simple.’”
