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Jerry Jones now says players who ‘disrespect flag’ will be benched

Cowboys owner Jerry Jones has declared that any player that sits or kneels during the national anthem will be benched.

Jones said after the Cowboys loss to the Green Bay Packers on Sunday that there will be punishment to anyone ‘disrespecting the flag.’ He told reporters after the game,

“We cannot in any way give the implication that we tolerate disrespecting the flag. We know that there is a serious debate in this country about those issues, but there is no question in my mind, that the [NFL] and the Dallas Cowboys are going to stand up for the flag.”

The Cowboys owner went further with his comments on Monday night in a phone interview with ESPN, reiterating his stance,

“If there’s anything that is disrespectful to the flag, then we will not play. Understand? We will not … if we are disrespecting the flag, then we will not play. Period.”

Jones cited a specific rule in the NFL ‘game ops manual’ that reads that players ‘should’ stand for the national anthem,

“The game ops manual has an ambiguity being used for those who don’t want to enforce it — the word ‘should’ stand for anthem is their ambiguity, but how can it be ambiguous when it cites the potential penalties of fines, suspension or loss of draft picks for failing to adhere?”

This comes a couple of weeks after Jerry Jones linked armed with his players in a display of ‘unity’ as they all kneeled before the national anthem, and stood as one before the anthem.

Jerry Jones is the ultimate billionaire centrist, playing both sides to best benefit himself however he sees fit (he donated money to both the Clinton and Trump campaigns last year). The kneel before the anthem stunt, coupled with this new policy that players will be benched if they do anything to ‘disrespect the flag’ is further proof of Jones trying to play this situation right down the middle.

Well, he made Trump happy.

We’re fighting about what football players do during the national anthem, it’s incomprehensibly stupid. This is no longer about the actual purpose of the protest, which is to shed light onto the inequality in our country, but instead just an opportunity for people to prove they’re real patriots who RESPECT THE FLAG.

Our president and vice president are taking time out of their schedules to worry about what football players are doing during the national anthem. This is the dumbest country ever.