Welcome, Husker Nation, to Wildcard Wednesday. Now I’m just going to let you know right off the bat I’ve had some people tell me I should not address the topic which I’m about to address. It’s the topic where the three players who took the knee before the Northwestern football game last week.

And just to let you know, I thought about talking about it when Kaepernick sat down and was taking knees during the preseason and the opening day in the NFL on 9-11 when the players were showing the protest. But I chose not to for one simple reason: I’m going to let you know right now, I don’t agree with the protests. I’ll get into that in a minute.

The reason I left it alone was that it was a peaceful protest. When I have an issue with protests is when there is violence, when there are people getting hurt, when there’s chaos, when there’s people attacking other people. Do you really think that’s going to make a positive difference? That’s when I have an issue with a protest. This was peaceful. I don’t agree with it; but I respected that. The fact that they were being peaceful about it. Now they have a First Amendment right to do what they are doing. Well guess what? I have that same First Amendment right to express my opinion on what they are doing. It doesn’t matter your race, your creed, your color, your culture, your background. It doesn’t matter anything. We’re all Americans. We all have that same First Amendment right.

Now, I want to make clear right out the gate, this is not a video about oppression. If you guys want me to make a video about oppression, I have absolutely no problem doing that. This is my show. Anything the fans want me to talk about, anything I deem valid, I will address and talk about. I don’t pretend to be an expert on everything. I’m hardly an expert on anything outside of football, let’s be honest. But, I will give my opinion on anything that needs to be talked about. But this is not a video about oppression. This video is about standing, kneeling, sitting during the National Anthem, and the issues I have with it.

I have three issues. The first issue I have is when you take one topic, one subject, and you say that it is more important than that American flag, which represents America, which represents every American – the millions and millions of Americans in it – I have an issue. Because that’s how I take the kneeling and protesting during the anthem. You’re protesting the flag which represents America and everybody in it.

There are so many issues that need to be addressed in this country. And they’re all valid issues. You’ve got oppression, you’ve got abortion, you’ve got immigration. I mean people I know have been affected by things that have affected negatively by things that have happened in this country. I’ve been affected negatively by things that have happened in this country and it varies in extent from person to person; but everybody’s affected by things positively and negatively. There was a lady who was aborted as a baby. She survived. She’s now a full-grown woman.

The fact of the matter is, is America perfect? Absolutely not. But is it the greatest country on God’s green earth, under God’s hot sun? Unquestionably. Now, I’ll tell you something, I’m not a big Donald Trump fan. But I’ll tell you what I’m not. I’m not going to support Hillary Clinton; and if she becomes President of the United States of America, I’m not going to be happy with it. But am I going to protest America? No, I’m not.

The fact of the matter is, throughout my entire athletic career I’ve always been told to stay away from politics and religion. Those are the two things we’re not supposed to touch. Well, guess what? I’m retired. And in my opinion, while every one of these topics has validation and needs to be addressed – I’m not devaluating them, they need to be addressed in some way, shape or form – the fact of the matter is, unless it’s an atomic bomb or a nuclear weapon headed towards our country, I have a hard time taking one subject and saying it’s more important than the American flag, America and Americans.

The second problem I have with this issue is they want to bring awareness to oppression. That’s what their protest is about. That’s not what I hear people talking about 95% of the time. Very few people are talking about that. What people are talking about is what you should and should not do during the National Anthem. Should you sit, should you stand, should you kneel? That’s what they’re bringing attention to. The fact of the matter is, if they wanted to bring attention to oppression, I think for the most part they failed. If they want to bring a whole bunch of publicity to what you should do during the National Anthem, they have succeeded wildly. The fact of the matter is, if they wanted to succeed in bringing more attention to oppression, they should do it another way.

Colin Kaepernick, who started this, in the NFL preseason instead of sitting during the National Anthem and protesting the flag or the National Anthem itself, he should have released a statement. He should have had his agent, one of his marketing companies, he could have done a post on Facebook – we’ve seen those things go viral, release a series of tweets. Now there would have been those out there who objected to them and would say you shouldn’t use social media for this, that’s not what it’s for. But, I don’t think that would have been the majority. A majority of people would have been talking about oppression. To me the way they’ve gone about the protests is the issue more so than anything else.

The third issue I have is a protest should ultimately, in the end, bring people together. Maybe not initially, but ultimately. And we’re still in the early stages of this. But this country is as divided racially as I have ever seen. And I’m not extremely old; but I’ve never seen it this divided racially ever. And football is typically usually something that brings people together. But it doesn’t appear that’s the case this season. And I’ll give you some numbers. So NFL franchises, their average net worth is up 22% from last year. Holy cow, wow, that’s a lot, all right? And the average NFL team’s net worth has doubled in the past three years. WOW. The NFL is soaring right? Viewership must be through the roof, right?

Not this year. The fact of the matter is, Monday Night Football’s first three games of the season, viewership is down 12%. So before the protests, the worth of these teams had gone up 22%, had doubled in three years. Since the protest viewership has gone down 12% for Monday Night Football. Thursday Night Football, their opening game this year compared to last year has gone down 27%. Now, I understand that various matchups can impact how many people view a particular game. But let’s be honest, it’s Thursday Night Football, it’s never the marquee matchup of the week. For it to be down 30% the first game this year vs. last year – wow. NBC’s three prime time games so far this year, their viewership is down approximately 3½ million viewers. Now it could be something else. I could be missing something. Maybe I’m not seeing the whole picture. But sometimes 2+2 just equals 4.

Now as far as bringing people together, sometimes you gotta take one step back to take two steps forward because there’s a backlash to things. And I understand that; but to me every protest should have three main goals. Right now we’ve definitely taken the one step back. We’ll see about those two steps forward. But every protest should have three main goals, in my personal opinion. You should want to bring awareness to the subject that you’re protesting. As I’ve addressed, I don’t think they’ve succeeded. It should make, ultimately, America better; and that’s kind of a longer-term process. That’s kind of the one step back to two steps forward thing. It just, it doesn’t look very good right now because of the way they’re doing the protests, not necessarily the protest itself. And again, whether you agree or disagree with oppression, to me it’s about the protest itself. And ultimately, you want to bring people together; and as I’ve discussed I don’t’ think they’ve done that.

Now, I do think that something has been underpublicized and under-published. It’s the four players who held the flag. The four Nebraska players who held the flag before the Northwestern football game on Saturday. It’s not getting anywhere near as much media attention. Why? Because you’re not gonna get the clicks, the views, the revenue. Like I said, I could have talked about this subject a long time ago; but it wasn’t until the Nebraska players did this Saturday night that I got bombarded with questions. It’s like, all right, people want me to talk about this. I listen to you people, so I’m addressing it now. But I want to give kudos. Four players held the flag, three players took a knee; but what’s getting more publicity? I want to give kudos to those four players who held the flag.

Now one of the questions I have is will these players who took a knee, will they keep doing it? And I hesitate to bring it up, because it’s going to be a distraction from the team. A team that has a lot of promise this season. But there are things in this world that are more important than football. So, to me, I don’t want the distraction; but there are things more important than football. So I am kind of divided. I am curious, but I am divided on that particular question.

Now one thing I do want to address is the social media interactions I’ve been reading about. Now not everybody, but certain people have been attacking the three players who kneeled on social media. And they’ve been calling them the n-word, they’ve been saying they should be kicked off the team and they should be hung. I’m gonna tell you right now, that is not OK, and frankly gets me a little emotional. I’m not going to pretend to be best friends with these three guys who took a knee, but what they are is my Husker brothers. More importantly, they’re human beings. Let me explain something. There is only one race, people. That’s the human race. Now there’s going to be reactions to this video. Everyone has the right to protest, to react to the protest. I have a right to make this video; you have the right to react to this video. Here is what I ask. I ask that you be passionate and respectful. Just use common sense. If you are vulgar or you get out of line, I will not hesitate to block you. But I want to hear what you say, just be passionate, respectful and use common sense.

Now this is one of the more serious videos I’ve ever done, but to me it was fun. It’s a serious issue, a serious topic; but it was fun simply because it doesn’t get any more American than this. You have a subject. You have people on each side of it; and you discuss it, and you try to make progress on it and make America better with it. So for that reason, this show was fun for me. Now this show was way longer than most shows I normally do. Most shows are normally just over a couple minutes, two minutes or so. I will say this: you can understand why today was longer.

The show I’m gonna do tomorrow is Prediction Thursday. It’s not gonna take me long to break down what should happen between Nebraska and Illinois on Saturday. It’s only gonna be like a minute. Be sure to tune in for that tomorrow. I also will be sharing some of my personal interactions that I had with Milt Tenopir, so you might find that interesting as well. So, until tomorrow, Go Big Red, God Bless America, and always remember to Throw the Bones!