NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Protests during or after the national anthem by players at NFL games tend to draw great attention.
Supporters and detractors are moved in ways that can go beyond my understanding, but it’s clear there are strong feelings on each side.
I think guys can do what they like and that anyone who lets it impact his or her interest in the game is really stretching it. But if it bothers you so much you don’t watch the game, you too can do as you like.
Titans defensive end DaQuan Jones was recently featured in an ESPN.com story about his plan, and the plan of some of his teammates, going forward.
"It's going to affect your job, your endorsements and your money," Jones said in the story about anthem protests. "Someone like me, going into my fourth year, I'm trying to get paid too. A lot of teams will look down at that and say, 'He's a Colin Kaepernick.'"
Not long after the piece was published, Jones tweeted, indicated he was displeased with it.
Don't believe everything you see , people who know me , know my stand , reporters will leave out a lot of info
— DaQuan Jones (@RiDQulous_98) August 17, 2017
Saturday afternoon, Jones didn’t do anything during or after the anthem before the Titans-Panthers game. Wesley Woodyard and Jurrell Casey raised a fist after the anthem.
I caught up to Jones after the game and asked about the tweet.
“I never said I wasn’t going to protest, and also when he said that I didn’t want to be labeled a Kaepernick? I said when you look at young players around the league and free agents, people aren’t going to want that problem,” Jones said. “That’s what I said. He took that as far as I don’t want to be a Kaepernick. That’s not the case.
“I also said that I’ve been talking to my teammates to find a way that we can protest that actually mean something and we can do something with it. It wasn’t like I’m not going to protest. We talk about it every day, what we’re going to do and how we’re going to go about it.”
The headline on the story -- "Titans' DaQuan Jones: Don't want to be labeled as 'a Colin Kaepernick'" -- which got wide play and was featured on SportsCenter, seemed to be bother Jones the most.
“Look at the heading of the conversation – ‘Don’t want to be labeled as a Kaepernick’ – that’s not true at all,” Jones said. “At the same time it’s the elephant in the room, you go ahead and bring attention to the team, people don’t like that. So what can we do to actually make a difference?
“That’s what we talked about too, and none of that was in the article at all. I talked about what we can do to make a difference and right now we’re just brainstorming and just talking about what we can actually do to bring change about.”
Casey expressed some of those same sentiments in the article that prompted Jones' rebuttal.
I'll write about the anthem and protest stuff here only as I warrent it news or comment worthy.
That Jones wanted to claify something that got a lot of attention qualified for sure.