Jim Trotter, a current writer for The Athletic and New York Times who sued the NFL for racism, took to X on Tuesday to add a note to a published piece calling out his employer, The Athletic, for “watering down” his article accusing the NFL of having a “double standard” when it comes to player’s expressing their political views.
Specifically, Trotter aimed at the league’s handling – or lack of handling – of 49ers defensive end Nick Bosa’s crashing of a post-game interview in which he displayed a MAGA hat.
To recap, Bosa crashed 49ers QB Brock Purdy’s post-game victory interview on Sunday Night Football by jumping into the camera picture, pointing to his Make America Great Again hat, and leaving the scene.
This action and Bosa’s doubling down on his support for the former president while declining to address it further, only adding that “It’s an important time,” prompted Trotter to write an article questioning whether the NFL had a double standard in its dealings with politically outspoken players.
However, according to Trotter, his article was heavily “watered down” by editors at The Athletic, who prevented him from saying what he wanted.
In a follow-up post, Trotter corrected himself to say that his original piece would have violated the journalistic standards of The Athletic, not the New York Times.
Regardless of who is responsible for “watering down” Trotter’s piece, the fact that an editor considered it too extreme to run on the pages of the country’s most overtly leftist newspaper, the New York Times, tells us much more about Trotter than it does about the Times.
Trotter made several criticisms in the “watered down” published piece.
“Bosa has every right to support whomever he chooses,” Trotter wrote. “As the saying goes, it’s a free country. But the display — and the intentionality behind it — was curious considering the NFL has gone to great lengths over the last eight years to stop players from making political expressions at games.”
It’s not clear what he means by “intentionality,” however, any fan attending an NFL game today is immediately confronted by social justice messaging and exhortations to vote. The players still display slogans on their helmets, and many fields still say, “It takes all of us.” The league’s campaign to get voters to the polls is ever-present in the stadiums, on television, and online.
As the 49ers fans who claim they were barred from entering Levi’s Stadium because one of them was wearing a MAGA hat said, “I wasn’t going to share, but even after seeing the field state, ‘vote it takes all of us,’ and [Nick] Bosa flashing his [MAGA] hat in the camera, I felt we were being discriminated against.”
Far from curtailing political expression, the NFL has fully embraced it, and fans (and players) who follow suit are merely following the league’s lead.
Trotter continued, “The concern is whether the NFL might show it has a double standard when it comes to political expressions by players. Kaepernick gets blackballed for fighting for social justice, and Bosa gets, what? Ignored by the league and applauded by far-right supporters who otherwise demand that athletes, specifically Black athletes, stick to sports?”
First of all, Bosa may yet be fined by the league. However, his actions and those of Kaepernick are not comparable. Colin Kaepernick took a moment meant to honor our nation and turned it into an extremely disrespectful act of political protest, eventually copied throughout the league. Bosa did not take a solemn moment meant to honor our country and turn it into a Trump campaign event.
He jumped in and out of a TV interview in a largely empty arena. If Kaepernick had handled his social justice protest the way Bosa handled his political endorsement of Donald Trump, he would never have generated half the outrage that eventually ensued.
Trotter also criticized Bosa for not defending his support of Trump to reporters after the fact.
“As for Bosa, I’d have more respect for him if he stood 10 toes down in his beliefs, Trotter explained. “During his post-game meeting with the media, he literally switched hats and refused to discuss his demonstration.”
I will go on a limb here and say that Nick Bosa, a man who makes a living battling 330-pound men, is unafraid of the San Francisco Chronicle’s beat reporters. Bosa stood next to President Trump in front of nearly 20,000 onlookers and the entire internet at a UFC fight as recently as a few months ago. He’s not afraid of anyone or hiding who he is.
However, unlike Kaepernick, who used his media opportunities to call the country racist in front of an uncritical press, thus fuelling a fire that served to distract from his team and create the largest media circus in the history of the NFL, Bosa isn’t playing that game.
It is an “important time,” and the hat speaks for itself.
If Kaepernick had followed that same strategy—making a brief display during a random post-game interview and never talking about it again—things could have worked out better for him.
The fact that Bosa is an infinitely better football player than Colin Kaepernick ever dreamed of being also helps his case for not getting “blackballed.”
In any event, Trotter and the rest of the leftist sports media eagerly welcomed the era of the athlete political activist when the activist ideologically aligned with them. Now that’s changing, and he’s sad about it.
Tough.
