On Monday, ESPN’s Pardon the Interruption host Michael Wilbon compared Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones to a slaveowner after Jones stated that players who show disrespect for the American flag would not play in the game following the National Anthem.
Pardon the Interruption co-host Tony Kornheiser noted that Cowboys stars like quarterback Dak Prescott or wideout Dez Bryant could force Jones to bench them if they protested. He said, “I believe he has the right to do that as an employer.”
Wilbon didn’t buy Kornheiser’s defense of Jones. He asserted: “He said he wanted to honor the anthem, and it seemed like that was where he was going. But now it just seems like it was as phony as a three-dollar bill. And the word that comes to mind, and I don’t care who doesn’t like me using it, is ‘plantation.’”
Wilbon said Jones’ attitude was, “The players are here to serve me, and they will do what I want no matter how much I pay them. They are not equal to me.”
Wilbon continued, “That’s what this says to me and to mine. And I want to know where the players are gonna go. These players in the NFL, their careers and their contracts are not guaranteed.”
Speaking on the Dan Patrick Show on Tuesday, Wilbon doubled down, saying:
As I called it yesterday, he’s phony, and I haven’t been suspended yet and I’m not gonna be. I thought it was phony; I think what the NFL owners did last week was increasingly phony and leaves an appearance, They wanted the heat off their behinds, and so they did what they did, in many cases, not all of them, but some of them, and Jerry Jones seemed to be the ringleader, and now he says he’s going to suspend any player who doesn’t stand. Well, suppose they all don’t stand? What’s he going to do, suspend the whole team? Is he going to forfeit the game? So I think Jerry’s a complete and utter phony in this regard, in that particular context. Let me make myself clear … I was critical of Jerry Jones yesterday, I used the phrase “plantation mentality.” Let me repeat it: “plantation mentality.” That’s what it comes off as.
Wilbon was echoing filmmaker Spike Lee, who said in late September of President Trump’s remarks vis-à-vis the NFL, “When he says — he is really telling the owners — like the owners are the plantation owners and the guys playing in the league, they’re on the plantation.”