When linebacker Brandon Marshall decided to kneel during the national anthem last season in protest of social injustices throughout the United States, Broncos’ president and CEO Joe Ellis found him in the team’s dining room for an open and honest discussion.
“I told him, ‘Brandon, I would like you to stand. But I respect the fact that you can do what you want to do, and as long as you’re leading to some productive outcomes, I’m going to respect that,’ ” Ellis told The Denver Post on Saturday.
Marshall joined Colin Kaepernick, his college teammate and former 49ers quarterback, in kneeling for the anthem to bring awareness to a string of police brutalities and other injustices in the country. His intent, Marshall has said repeatedly, was to start a conversation, but to follow it with action. So he later met with Denver police chief Robert White about the department’s use-of-force policy, and pledged to donate $300 per tackle he made last season to local organizations and programs to “address critical social issues.”
But his actions faced blowback, as he expected they would. He lost a pair of endorsement deals, received numerous threatening messages and letters, and watched a fan burn an orange shirt with his name on the back on the steps of the Broncos’ practice facility.
“In so many different instances, players have only been able to reach out to fans on Tuesdays. Now we have social media and we have a lot more awareness of what’s important to them, and their biggest audience isn’t on a Tuesday at an elementary school,” Ellis said. “It’s on a Sunday at a game. So I respect the fact — we respect the fact — that Sunday is a big audience for them and I think we’re making strides in allowing players to be able to express themselves and get behind some of their beliefs and causes on game day — ‘My Cleats, My Cause’ being an example. I think you’ll see more of that.
“It’s a complicated issue — though I don’t know that some people see it as complicated — for fans and for the public in general because they use sports as a way to get away from a lot of the everyday dialogue and chatter and politics and whatever you want to call it. … But as I told him, ‘We want you to stand, but this is your decision and we’ll respect whatever decision you make.’ And he knelt for a few games and eventually stood up, and he got some things accomplished.”
During the preseason, Broncos general manager John Elway offered a similar sentiment when he said players “have the right to display whatever they wish to display” but “the bottom line is that can’t get in the way of our main goal, and that is to compete for world championships.”
This season multiple players protested during the anthem, especially in the wake of the Charlottesville, Va., attack. Marshall, who knelt for eight games last season, said he has given thought to joining them.
“They say, ‘just play football. That’s what you do,’ ” he said. “They act like we’re football players 24/7, all day, every day just all about ball. I’m a human being. I have opinions. I have passions. I have things I would like to do.”
In the meantime, Marshall has been vocal about Kaepernick’s continued employment, which many believe is because of his protests and not his ability as a football player.
Asked if he would ever be hesitant to sign a player simply because of his protesting, Ellis said: “No, I would not. I would defer to (the personnel department) and we’d probably have a discussion about whether that would take away from what the team was trying to accomplish. But at the end of the day, if it was going to help us win, I would not take issue with that.
“As an organization, how do we feel? We feel players should stand for the national anthem. Everyone should — all our fans, everyone involved in the game. That’s how we feel as an organization. But players have their own personal beliefs and personal reasons and we respect that. They’re entitled to that.”