With Roger Goodell admitting that the NFL was wrong for trying to silence protesting players in recent years, Bills cornerback Josh Norman hopes that both sides can work together to create change moving forward.
“He admitted what the truths were. That’s something that he felt they got wrong,” Norman said on The Zach Gelb Show. “At the end of the day, he came out, he stepped up to it – it takes a big man to do that. It takes a lot of guts to admit you’re wrong. A lot of people in life just don’t want to admit their faults. You can go to Drew Brees. He admitted his faults. He was wrong. But we’re not going to brutalize somebody for admitting this.”
Instead, Norman and other members of the Black community want to work with Goodell, Brees, and others to solve problems.
“I think that’s what we [need to do],” Norman said. “I know Roger and his team are going to do that because that’s what the league is all about: helping others. I’m looking forward to seeing what that looks like.”
When Colin Kaepernick began protesting in 2016, he made it clear that he was protesting police brutality and racial inequality. Many people, however, chose to ignore that and argued that Kaepernick was disrespecting the flag and the military.
“They hijacked the message,” Norman said. “You’re always going to have good and bad. Someone is always going to hijack what you feel is the truth and spin it and make it their own truth. Regardless of whatever you do, you can only go out and do good because bad is always going to follow. So no matter what, you got to go out there and be who you are and be prominent about what you truly believe in. That was something that [Kaepernick] believed in, and he went for it and guess what? He got ridiculed for it.”
Based on Goodell’s video statement, however, players will apparently be encouraged to peacefully protest in the future.
“What do we do going forward?” Norman asked. “We cannot continue to shoot the messenger. . . . At the end of the day, we can’t sit up here and continue to point the blame at somebody that already admitted they was wrong and then not try to find a solution. You’re spinning your wheels and you’re going to be standing in the same place. So I’m not going to [criticize] this man because of what he did. I’m trying to find [solutions]. At the end of the day, that’s all that matters.”