San Antonio Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich says Roger Goodell and the NFL owners are hypocrites for their handling of Colin Kaepernick and social justice. 

Ezra Shaw / Getty Images

Speaking with Maureen Dowd of the New York Times, Popovich sides with the NFL players who kneeled during the National Anthem: “A smart man is running the NFL and he didn’t understand the difference between the flag and what makes the country great—all the people who fought to allow Kaepernick to have the right to kneel for justice. The flag is irrelevant,” he said. “It’s just a symbol that people glom onto for political reasons, just like Cheney back in the Iraq war.”

Regarding the NFL’s newfound support for the Black Lives Matter movement, Popovich had this to say: “It’s just hypocritical. It’s incongruent. It doesn’t make sense. People aren’t blind. Do you go to your staff and your players and talk about injustices and democracy and how to protest? I don’t get it. I think they put themselves in a position that’s untenable.”

Popovich also claimed Goodell “got intimidated when [Donald] Trump jumped on the kneeling” and that Goodell “folded.”

Last week, Popovich used the Spurs’ social media platform to speak about police brutality and the death of George Floyd.

[Via]