After years of left-leaning athletes endorsing, promoting and even campaigning for Democratic Party politicians without incident, Jaxson Dart has faced immense criticism and set off a media firestorm by introducing President Donald Trump at a recent rally.
His teammate, Abdul Carter, then made himself part of the conversation unnecessarily, criticizing Dart for supporting Trump. Then, when addressing it in front of the media, he gave an inexplicable answer about his post and decision to speak out.
One of the most common criticisms of Dart’s choice has been that he would divide the locker room. That his teammates would no longer feel comfortable working with him. Former player and current analyst Emmanuel Acho went as far as saying that it was “pretty stupid” to support Trump publicly.
But another former player, Dez Bryant, has a completely different perspective that’s much more representative of how locker rooms actually function.
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Speaking on “The Arena: Gridiron” podcast, Bryant explained that football teams are full of people that come from different backgrounds, have different perspectives and work together successfully anyway.
“It’s so many different upbringings, so many backgrounds in the league,” Bryant explained. “Man, you got dudes from the hood, from the suburbs, from the country, from the city…You’re going to have different political views. You’re gonna have different religious views. I don’t think it impact the locker room. They say you’re not supposed to talk about politics. Man, f— that. The locker room talk about everything. And you’re gonna had guys who believe something you don’t believe. And you all gonna talk about it. It probably turn to jokes.”
Bryant brought up a specific example of a teammate, former defensive end Derek Wolfe, who was a diehard Trump supporter. That even if there were disagreements about politics, everyone went to his wedding anyway.
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“In our locker room, we had my dog, Derek Wolf. He loved Trump. He was adamant about it. He f—– loved Trump, ‘Trump gon’ do this, and Trump gon’,’ we used to argue with him, and play around, and laugh, and joke, and at the end of the day, we all was at the wedding. He had married, we’re all up there in Vail at the wedding, kicking it, like, that’s our brother to this day.”
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He said that attitude is what the locker room is all about, coming together from different backgrounds to win championships. What actually divides teammates? When someone puts themselves and their contract above winning.
“Now if there’s a guy here like, ‘bro, I’m making my cash, I don’t give a f— about winning’…Nah, that’s gonna cause a riff-raff in the locker room.”
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That’s what’s so disingenuous about the criticisms levied at Dart. None of his critics would say a word if he appeared with Kamala Harris or Barack Obama at a rally. There’d be nothing “divisive,” or “pretty stupid” about supporting Democrats. But the media or specific commentators treat Trump differently, and Abdul Carter, despite a very questionable past himself, ironically was the only divisive force in the entire incident.
What Bryant explains is that the Giants locker room almost certainly doesn’t care about someone’s political opinions. That they can disagree without it becoming a problem. That the one thing John Harbaugh or Dart’s teammates would view as unacceptable is not putting winning first. If only sports media thought the same way.
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