NFL Kickoff: New York Jets Make the Decision to Stay in the Locker Room for the Week 1 National Anthem

The New York Jets did not come out for the national anthem ahead of Sunday’s game at the Buffalo Bills. It was a decision that the Jets carefully considered in the days before the season opener.

Jets head coach Adam Gase said that the team’s leadership council and captains did their homework on the best way to protest for social justice and against issues dealing with the police. In 2016, the NFL drew criticism when players took a knee during the national anthem to protest similar issues.

Talk of protesting during the national anthem this season began several months ago with the deaths of George Floyd in Minneapolis, MN and Breonna Taylor in Louisville, KY. Both deaths came as the result of being shot by the police.

The deaths of Floyd and Taylor have led to a heated national discussion about policing and the Black community.

“We had a couple of meetings leading up to the game to put the options out there,” Gase said after the game.

“Whether it was me meeting with the captains, leadership council - those guys did a great job of talking with most of the guys on the team. The decision was made as a group that we would be together on this and stay in the locker room.”

The Bills did not come out for the national anthem either.

Across the league, teams took a number of different approaches for Week 1 with their response to the national anthem. While not protesting the anthem, players and teams chose to utilize the platform that is the anthem to draw attention to the myriad of social justice issues that are at the forefront of the national discussion.

Marcus Maye, in his first season as one of the Jets’ five team captains, spoke of the need to do something.

“We just decided as a unit that we were going to hold out and stay inside during the National Anthem,” Maye said.

“We all decided that was something big for us to do. We did it as a group, as a team. Obviously, people had different perspectives on being out there on the sidelines, so we made an emphasis on just staying inside and keeping everybody together inside.”

Former Jets safety Burgess Owens, running for Congress as a Republican in Utah, told Jets Country in June that he would be done with the NFL if players protested social issues during the national anthem. Owens is Black and the Super Bowl winner has said that social and race issues should be handled like in an NFL locker room based where individuals of differing backgrounds come together for a common purpose.