The National Football League found itself in something of a bind in the days before the presidential vote over, of all things, a hat.
The incident took place when Nick Bosa, a defensive end for the San Francisco 49ers, crashed a TV interview with quarterback Brock Purdy after the team trounced the Dallas Cowboys on Oct. 27.
By sporting a white MAGA hat as he joined Purdy in front of the cameras, Bosa violated the NFL’s rules on personal or political messaging while on the field.
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Now, the Wall Street Journal has revealed the league in fact held off penalizing the defensive end until after the recent presidential election was concluded, ducking an almost certain backlash from diehard Republicans and even the now-president-elect himself until the waters had calmed a little.
Bosa has now reportedly been fined $11,255 for the stunt, a price he’s apparently described as “well worth it.”
The NFL is usually fairly swift to respond to violations of its bylaw on on-field messaging, given the rules are pretty clear-cut.
But past experience suggests their concerns over possible backlash were hardly misplaced, given Trump’s track record of attacking the league’s teams and fans as a surefire way of riling up the MAGA camp.
Perhaps the most pertinent case in point being the 2016 controversy over Colin Kaepernick’s decision to take the knee during the national anthem as an act of protest against police brutality, which saw the NFL come under repeated fire from Trump for Kaepernick and other players’ supposed lack of patriotism.
