Woke leftists want to cancel NFL coach for his political expression
The attack on Jack Del Rio
Jack Del Rio is the defensive coordinator for the Washington Commanders. He was an all-American at USC, a Pro Bowl selection with the Minnesota Vikings, and a fairly successful NFL head coach before taking charge of Washington’s defense.
In his first season, that defense, which had been lightly regarded, was among the best in the NFL. But last year, the now-highly-regarded defense was poor.
Del Rio came under fire as a result. But that’s nothing compared to the fire he is now under for expressing political views that contradict left-liberal orthodoxy.
When an athlete or coach utters left-liberal sentiments, he becomes the object of praise, if not lionization. That happens even if, like Colin Kaepernick, his views are virulently anti-American or, like Steve Kerr, his expression is little more than a temper tantrum.
But Del Rio has been declared unfit to coach for opining that the condemnation of the January 6 rioting at the Capitol is disproportionately intense compared to the condemnation — or lack thereof — of the constant rioting by anti-police protesters in the summer of 2000.
Del Rio kicked off the controversy with this Twitter entry:
Would love to understand “the whole story” about why the summer of riots, looting, burning and the destruction of personal property is never discussed but this [January 6] is ???
Then, yesterday, when asked about his tweet, the coach expanded on his politically incorrect view. He said:
What did I ask? A simple question -- why are we not looking into those things if we're going to talk about it. Why are we not looking into those things?
Because it's kind of hard for me to say, I can realistically look at it -- I see the images on TV, people's livelihoods are being destroyed. Businesses are being burned down -- no problem. And then we have a dust-up at the Capitol, where nothing burned down. And we're going to make that a major deal.
I just think it's kind of two standards. And if we apply the same standard, and we're going to be reasonable with each other, let's have a discussion. That's all it was. Let's have a discussion. We're Americans. Let's talk it through
It was absurd for Del Rio to call January 6 a dust-up. The attack on the Capitol was awful — an affront to America’s constitutional order. But Del Rio, realizing his error, promptly apologized for the “dust-up” description
Unfortunately, this was not enough to stop left-wing sports pundits (that seems to be the only kind, at least among those who express political opinions) from calling for Del Rio’s head. Barry Svrluga, the lead wokester at the Washington Post’s sports section, complained that Del Rio “never acknowledged the offensive[ness] of the idea that the violence in these two cases are (sic) similar in origin.” He called for Del Rio’s ouster.
Let’s step back for a moment. Even if Del Rio had stood by his characterization of January 6 as a dust-up, this wouldn’t be grounds for deeming him unfit to coach an NFL defense. Del Rio has the right to hold stupid opinions about current events, and holding them has nothing to do with his fitness as a coach.
But Del Rio did apologize. So we’re left with him being deemed unfit because he did not acknowledge the obvious — that the violence on January 6 stemmed from a dispute about election results (and broader discontent with treatment of “deplorables”) and the BLM violence stemmed from grievances with the police (and broader discontent with the way blacks have been treated and, to some degree, still are).
Del Rio never denied this, though. More importantly, when did acknowledging such a fact become a prerequisite for coaching a football team?
Svrulga apparently believes that the different origins of the violence justify condemning the events of January 6 much more harshly than the rioting in the summer of 2000 (which he doesn’t seem to condemn at all). Fine.
Maybe Del Rio would accept this as an answer to the question he asked in his tweet. More likely, he would not.
Either way, he should remain Washington’s defensive coordinator as long as his coaching is up to the team’s standards. Disagreeing with Barry Svrulga and his fellow left-liberals on a political matter is not a firing offense.
This would be true even if Svrulga’s views on the riots were completely sound. They are not.
The similarities between January 6 and the summer of 2020 are greater than the Post writer admits. Both involved political protests in which a relatively small number of the participants turned violent.
Both protests stemmed from political positions that can be considered (and I do consider) erroneous and extreme — the view that Democrats stole the 2020 election and the view that policing in America is systemically racist to the point that police forces should either be abolished or cut back significantly. I don’t ascribe the latter view to all, or even most, of the 2020 protesters. However, it’s the view of BLM and, I believe, most of the violent protesters, to the extent they weren’t just opportunist thugs or nihilists.
The January 6 rioting was a direct affront to our constitutional order. In that sense, it was worse than the rioting in the summer of 2020.
But the 2020 rioting was also a threat to constitutional order (or “our democracy,” as the left loves to say). It’s anti-democratic for protesters to take over a portion of downtown Seattle and declare it their own jurisdiction. It’s anti-democratic to attack and try to burn down a federal court house, where democratic governance takes place.
Abolishing or seriously curtailing the police and radically altering the criminal justice system would pose a huge threat to civil society. Even liberals in places like San Francisco are beginning to realize this. That’s why Chesa Boudin was recalled earlier this week by an overwhelming margin.
A final point must be considered: Has Del Rio lost the support of his players due to what he said? The answer so far appears to be no.
Jonathan Allen is a key team leader and its best defensive player. He says:
At the end of the day,, you can have a difference of opinion and still respect one another. I feel like that’s what our country is about. That’s what our team is about.
So, I mean me personally, I don’t care about his opinion as long as he shows up every day and works hard. That’s what I want from my defensive coordinator.
Cornerback Kyle Fuller expressed a similarly sound sentiment. Fortunately, Washington defenders seem far more sensible than Washington pundits.
That’s a very low bar. I’m heartened nonetheless.
It’s possible someone might hold political views so disagreeable to me that I would consider him “unsuitable” for public office. I’d therefore not vote for him.
But I can’t conceive how my disagreement with someone would ever convince me that he should be denied the opportunity to support himself and his family through gainful employment in the field that best matches his talents—whether that field be education, cosmetology, construction, candlestick-making, coaching in the NFL, or any other field in which political views are completely unrelated to professional competence and effectiveness.
Barry Svrluga makes no effort to demonstrate that Del Rio’s comments bear on his effectiveness. Svrluga argues only that Del Rio’s comments *should* impair his effectiveness, but that assessment rests entirely on Svrluga’s *disagreement* with the substance of Del Rio’s opinions. In other words, Svrluga is so intolerant of views he doesn’t share that he believes those who hold them should be denied employment in the NFL on that account.
One has to wonder whether the WaPo should, as Svrluga might put it, “evaluate whether his is the message they want send” to their workforce and readership.
They succeeded. He just got cancelled.