When I heard President Donald Trump’s comments on Friday night, I did a double take but did not expect to have what happened on Saturday to Sunday with the owners and players being united as one. This topic stayed with me all weekend including a drive home on Saturday afternoon. The culture war is one of the biggest things we’re fighting right now as a society, and social media has made it significantly worse. President Trump decided we need to make sports part of the culture war as well and now, we can no longer look to sports as a escape from what’s going on in our world.

All of the NFL pregame shows felt like ‘Meet The Press.’ That’s not how I want to start my Sunday usually. I know why it happened this week, but is this how we’re going to do it for the next several weeks? I hope not. But it’s not FOX, CBS, ESPN or NBC’s fault, rather, it’s the President who thinks that he should have an opinion on sports topics. He’s following suit with former President Barack Obama who did the same thing at a much different scale. These men want to feel involved at all touch points of our life, and I honestly wish they would have kept sports to us, not them.

I’ve said this a couple times, and I’m going to say it again – This isn’t about protesting the National Anthem, it’s about the limiting of free speech. President Trump wanted to ‘fire’ people for protesting in a peaceful manner. He also referred to them as a ‘son of a bitch.’ I’m not a fan of anthem protests, but it’s their right to do it. Everyone can express themselves in different manners. The most frustrating thing from someone trying to avoid a culture work was this topic did not have much attention until Trump decided to throw gas on embers creating this issue yet again.

Going forward, I hope the NFL and the players ignore whatever Trump says this week. Why? Because he wants to make this an even bigger culture war. To the point where if you support the national anthem, you do not watch football, or if you support Trump then boycott football. And the other side of things, if you don’t like anthem protests you are a right-wing nut job. We have so many major things to focus on this country, and the fact the news cycle was about fucking professional athletes versus the President speaks volumes about how all of the real issues are minor in nature.

No matter how we voted or what we support, we can all cheer for the same team. No one needs to know your politics when you walk into Lambeau Field. Let’s not boo players for speaking out either. They’re not robots, and you do not control them, even if you’re a Packers owner. Let’s continue to find ways for common ground to be had with each other.

Charlie.