All rise, and welcome to this sports court of public opinion we call Foul Play-by-Play – the podcast that provides play-by-play and color commentary on foul play in sports on and off the field, pitch, court, and ice.
Headlines
Headline 1: Dolphins First to Release Potential Penalties for Anthem Protests
Since the Miami Dolphins are one of the first NFL teams to report to training camp, they were the first to put police brutality protest penalties in writing, as required by the league. I’m calling them police brutality protests instead of anthem protests because that’s what they are: the players are protesting police brutality against minorities, not the national anthem. Yet the media was quick to dub the protests as anthem protests, which has stuck.

If you search Google using the terms “anthem protest” you get 13.6 million hits. Using the search terms “anthem protests” you get almost 1.5 million hits. If you search “police brutality protests” you get just 187,000 hits, so simply assigning a name to these protests

The Dolphins stuffed the police brutality protests in with other acts of conduct deemed “detrimental to the club” punishable by up to four-game suspensions, but they reportedly have no intent of suspending players four games for protesting the national anthem. Co-owner of the New York Giants, Steve Tisch, has since announced that their players will not be subject to penalties for protesting police brutality during the national anthem.

The public backlash to the Dolphins’ announcement has forced the NFL to put a freeze on its national anthem protest policy, and the NFL Players’ Association (NFLPA) and the NFL are finally working out an agreement to end the anthem feud, as should have been the case in the first place given the collective bargaining agreement.

Since the Dolphins’ announcement and resulting public backlash, Donald Trump has tweeted his displeasure with the anthem dispute, tweeting, “Isn’t it in contract that players must stand at attention, hand on heart? The $40,000,000 Commissioner must now make a stand. First time kneeling, out for game. Second time kneeling, out for season/no pay!”

To answer Donald's question, players’ contracts do not include an anthem clause and neither does the collective bargaining agreement, and the commissioner taking Trump's recommended stand could be devastating to the league given the NFLPA's membership being almost 70-percent black. That union, at least, still has power. There is no NFL if just the black players protest during the anthem, and it hasn’t been just black players protesting.

I imagine the players value their right to protest more than the right to use cannabis but less than they value guaranteed contracts. On the topic of guaranteed contracts...
Headline 2: Le’Veon Bell to Play Without Job Security for Third Straight Season
For a third consecutive season, running back Le’Veon Bell will play for the Steelers without a long-term contract in place, providing him no job security if he were to be injured in 2018. Pittsburgh’s final offer to Bell, which is likely to be the final contract the Steelers ever offer Bell, was reportedly worth $70 million over five years. But it only contained ...