Herschel Walker (pictured) chats with Georgia Bulldogs linebacker Roquan Smith before a game on January 8, 2018
A former NFL running back accused the league of buying players’ silence by promising to donate tens of millions of dollars to charitable organizations if they agreed to stop kneeling during the national anthem.
Herschel Walker, who played the majority of his 12 year career with the Dallas Cowboys, described the $100 million offer made in November as ‘hush money,’ adding that players should not have protested in the first place.
‘The league gave the players a large sum of money toward their cause… That’s hush money,’ the 1982 Heisman Trophy winner told Fox News.
According to ESPN, the NFL offered to donate the money over a seven year period to causes important to African-American communities. Team owners are expected to vote on the proposal in March.
Walker continued by saying that Colin Kaepernick, the NFL player credited with starting the demonstration in 2016, would have not protested if he had been the starting quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers instead of the back-up.
Walker’s comments come partly in response to protests that were a topic of contention for most of the 2017 football season
‘When you have an idle mind, you start doing things,’ said Walker.
He added: ‘[You] have guys who want to kneel, want to talk about their First Amendment rights. Well, your First Amendment right should be, “I want to stand for our military,'” he said.
The protests were a topic of contention for most of the 2017 football season.
A mostly black contingent of athletes, unified but small compared to the size of the league, followed the lead Kaepernick and knelt instead of standing as The Star Spangled Banner was played or sung.
Walker, who played the majority of his 12 year career with the Dallas Cowboys, described the $100 million offer made in November as ‘hush money’
The demonstration was intended as a statement of support for black victims of police brutality, but was taken in pats of the country as a gut-punch to America’s national identity.
The protest numbers reached as high as 200 during one week in the fall, after President Donald trump said team owners should bench any player who failed to stand for the Anthem.
Trump had asked a frenzied crowd during a September campaign-style rally in Alabama: ‘Wouldn’t you love to see one of these N.F.L. owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, “Get that son of a b***h off the field right now! Out! He’s fired. He’s fired!”‘
Kaepernick, who was a free agent during the 2017 season, has filed a grievance against the league, claiming through his lawyer that the NFL and its owners ‘have colluded to deprive Kaepernick of employment rights in retaliation for Kaepernick’s leadership and advocacy for equality and social justice and his bringing awareness to peculiar institutions still undermining racial equality in the United States.’
After leaving college in 1983, Walker became a member the now defunct USFL’s New Jersey Generals team, an organization owned by Donald Trump.
In his three years in the league, Walker recorded 7,115 all-purpose yards (5,562 rushing) and 61 touchdowns.
He later had a legendary career in the NFL, racking up 18,168 all-purpose yards, placing him 11th all time in the league.
The protest numbers reached as high as 200 during one week in the fall, after President Donald trump said team owners should bench any player who failed to stand for the Anthem
Walker, who won the Heisman Trophy while at Georgia (pictured 1981), had a legendary career in the NFL, racking up 18,168 all-purpose yards, placing him 11th all time in the league