New York Jets Players React to Jacob Blake Shooting, Talk Team Meeting About Social Unrest
“I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired.”
Those were the emotional words of New York Jets safety Bradley McDougald when asked about his reaction to the recent police shooting involving Jacob Blake, a man shot multiple times by police in Kenosha, WI. He has been paralyzed since the shooting.
The Jets held a team meeting on Tuesday after practice. Jets owner Christopher Johnson attended the meeting where they discussed the issues of social unrest in the country today.
The team broke down by position groups to address the situation in a deeper, more meaningful way.
“My heart goes out to the family,” McDougald said Wednesday in a virtual press conference. “But it seems like all we can do right now is just talk and formulate ideas. Guys are getting tired of talking and guys are tired of formulating this perfect idea and whatever solution we're close to coming up with as a community, you know, these athletes with these platforms.”
NFL players were very vocal in the aftermath of the George Floyd shooting in Minneapolis, MN in May of this year. Players united around the Black Lives Matter cause and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell apologized for not listening to Colin Kaepernick when he began kneeling for the national anthem to raise awareness of years of allegations of police brutality.
“I've been in a similar situation when I was in college,” said Jets wide receiver Jamison Crowder Wednesday on Zoom. “I was pulled over numerous amount of times because of the car I was driving. Obviously, I was being stereotyped. I hadn’t committed a crime at all, but, you know, I had drug dogs pulled on me, had to get out of the car, you know what I'm saying?”
Crowder was very vocal in his feelings on the subject.
“When I see those images of things like this continuing to happen, it just always reminds me of my situation that I was in person,” Crowder expanded. “One false move I could have made, I could easily be a victim. We had good, good dialogue yesterday. Right now we’re just trying to come up with a plan so we can continue to push and continue to, bring awareness to what's going on, and how it is to be African American in this country.”
The theme from the players who spoke was that they just want some kind of change and that the current efforts haven’t changed the issues for Black men.
On Wednesday, the NBA playoff games were postponed.
“We've been doing a lot of things in the community,” said McDougald. “I mean, we've marched, we have done peaceful protests. We've painted streets in front of national monuments. We took slave masters down or guys who own slaves that had statues. We've done everything but change the law.”
“We got more work to do on the football field and in the community with each other,” McDougald added. “We got more work to do.”
