More and more NFL players are mimicking the two-fisted dance from the 45th and 47th U.S. president. And the league has no problem with it.
Nor should it.
“There’s no issue with a celebratory dance such as what took place [Sunday] or the previous week with the 49ers on November 10,” NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy told Michael McCarthy of FrontOfficeSports.com, referring to multiple players who have done the dance after big plays. Brian McCarthy added that, as to broadcasting the celebrations, “It’s up to the networks to cover them as they see fit.”
It’s a story given the political undertones of the dance. But the dance itself violates no league rules. Even if the players doing the dance are doing it to make a political statement, the rules allow it.
The rules allow it the same way the rules allow a player to sit or kneel (or not put his hand over his heart) during the National Anthem.
The trend became a bigger story for the NFL in part because the Raiders reportedly shut down tight end Brock Bowers’s post-game press conference after he was asked, and answered, a question about the dance. That has led to criticism regarding the actual or perceived double standard when it comes to actual or perceived political gestures.
Why are players who don’t stand for the anthem expected to explain their stance while players who are doing the Trump dance (or wearing a hat with a political statement on the field, which violates the rules) given a pass?
Again, players can do the Trump dance all they want. It’s fully within the rules. But it’s weird, and it’s weak, for players and/or teams to slam the door on any discussion regarding the political beliefs potentially held by anyone who does that dance in public.