The week before President Trump decided to make NFL player protests a federal issue (so to speak), there were players on seven teams who participated in some sort of display during the national anthem.
Defining “participated” is tricky; do we count the 10 players on the San Francisco 49ers who, according to ESPN’s reporting, supported Eric Reid’s protest by putting their hands on his shoulders? If we do — and, in our analysis below, we did — it gives us 24 players during the second week of the National Football League season. The week prior, it was about the same.
Then Trump criticized the protests during a speech in Alabama, following it up with a slew of tweets complaining about them.
Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
If NFL fans refuse to go to games until players stop disrespecting our Flag & Country, you will see change take place fast. Fire or suspend!
<time class="dt-updated" datetime="2017-09-24T10:44:52+0000" pubdate="" title="Time posted: September 24, 2017 10:44:52 (UTC)">6:44 AM - Sep 24, 2017</time>
The next weekend, during NFL Week 3, the NFL protests soared. You can see it on the chart below. Nearly every team had either individual players protesting or some sort of team action (linking arms or kneeling) for example. (The size of the darker-colored player circles correlates to the number of players participating.) In some cases, those team demonstrations or new individual player protests have been continued since.
Defining “participated” is tricky; do we count the 10 players on the San Francisco 49ers who, according to ESPN’s reporting, supported Eric Reid’s protest by putting their hands on his shoulders? If we do — and, in our analysis below, we did — it gives us 24 players during the second week of the National Football League season. The week prior, it was about the same.
Then Trump criticized the protests during a speech in Alabama, following it up with a slew of tweets complaining about them.
Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
If NFL fans refuse to go to games until players stop disrespecting our Flag & Country, you will see change take place fast. Fire or suspend!
<time class="dt-updated" datetime="2017-09-24T10:44:52+0000" pubdate="" title="Time posted: September 24, 2017 10:44:52 (UTC)">6:44 AM - Sep 24, 2017</time>
The next weekend, during NFL Week 3, the NFL protests soared. You can see it on the chart below. Nearly every team had either individual players protesting or some sort of team action (linking arms or kneeling) for example. (The size of the darker-colored player circles correlates to the number of players participating.) In some cases, those team demonstrations or new individual player protests have been continued since.
