Matt Stafford shares playing football w/ Black ppl incident

"Shortly after George Floyd was killed, I was down in Atlanta doing my off-season workouts. It was obviously complicated because of COVID, so I had arranged to use a field where I could do some work with my receivers. The first one who could make it to Atlanta was Danny Amendola.

"Danny and I spent four days working out together. No problems at all. It was great. A week later, I went to do the same thing, at the same field, with four of my black teammates. We were just starting to dump all the footballs out on the field and some of the guys were still stretching when a gentleman came out and told us that we were trespassing — and to leave immediately.

"We didn’t even have our cleats on yet. I remember I was standing there in my socks, just kind of stunned and confused, like, What? But he didn’t even want to listen. We were still gathering up the footballs and trying to figure out another spot where we might be able to go when the gentleman pulled out his cellphone.

"He said, 'I’m calling the police.' After everything that we’ve witnessed over the last few months, and how situations can escalate for no reason at all … and here the police are being called. We were there for maybe 10 minutes total. Nobody said a bad word to him. And he still called the police and told them that we were being 'uncooperative'; and 'not leaving the property.' "

"Obviously, we got out of there immediately."

https://www.theplayerstribune.com/en-us ... -injustice

Thanks for posting. That is a powerful read

I've always liked and respected Matt, and genuinely feel sorry for him for having to play for the Detroit Lions.
This just upped my respect for the kid tenfold.

What comes after is this reflection:

"I was embarrassed to have put my teammates in that situation, especially when I was told that it was cool to use the field. Especially when I had been on the same field with Danny with no problems.

"The only difference is what we all know in our hearts. Danny and I are white. We don’t get the cops called on us in those situations. We don’t immediately get called uncooperative. And if even if Danny and I somehow did get the cops called on us, we all know how that interaction would’ve gone. 'Hey, what are you doing here? O.K, well, move along now. Have a good day.' "

Stafford's exactly right. That is the exact difference.

And whoever this Kevin is who tried to play an Amy Cooper on them should get the Amy Cooper treatment.

hgwellz12":2kduw7nf said:

I've always liked and respected Matt, and genuinely feel sorry for him for having to play for the Detroit Lions.
This just upped my respect for the kid tenfold.

Click to expand...

Stafford was a great talent and good person wasted on a bad Lions team and Detroit Franchise. I always wanted him to get out and find some new place to play. I think had he, in some way, had gone to the Colts rather than Rivers than I would really consider that team a contender with him at the helm.

The Lions aren't bad in the way that say, the Jets and Giants are bad in 2020.

Most of their losses were more squeaker than blowout recently. They just can't close too often.