Robert Saleh has been fired as head coach of the New York Jets after Sunday’s loss to the Minnesota Vikings. With high hopes for a winning season in 2024-25 because star quarterback Aaron Rodgers is finally healthy, the Jets have looked weak while managing only a 2-3 record. The King’s Pass might have worked for Saleh if he had led the Jets to a better record, but many suspect that the impetus for his dismissal was his controversial choice to sport a Lebanon flag below the Nike logo on the sleeve of his hoodie during the Vikings game. This was his tasteful choice while Israel was fighting for its life against the terrorist, Iran-funded organization Hezbollah, which uses Lebanon as its headquarters.
Saleh is Lebanese; we get it, but when he’s on an NFL football field his job is football, not political activist or Lebanese apologist. This is essentially the same issue as the unethical “taking a knee” fad. NFL players, coaches and referrers can wave (or disrespect) whatever flags they want on their own time. By what convoluted logical and ethical calculations does someone like Saleh conclude that it is appropriate to make people who paid (a lot!) to see a football game be captive witnesses for his political opinions?
The NFL asked for this, being the most ethically-dim of all sports organizations. Last season, even after the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, the NFL, which is as cynical and exploitive as it is soulless, announced that players “can choose to wear the flag of an international country or territory where relatives have been born or where they’ve lived for over two years.” Diversity, you know. The league was just lucky that Jew-hating didn’t break out via flag decals in NFL games before this.
Fortunately for the Jets, Selah will have a hard time proving that he was sacked for his political posturing rather than his team’s record. After all, the NFL sanctioned such grandstanding, just as they allowed, despicably, players to wear “Black Lives Matter” on their helmets in 2021. Just because unethical conduct is allowed, however, doesn’t mean it’s ethical.
Ethics Alarms 
While ESPN’s Pardon The Interruption opened today’s program with that news, there was absolutely no reference whatsoever to the sleeve patch.
Co-host Michael Wilbon blamed the firing on Aaron Rodgers’, while cutting, make that RIPPING, the Jets QB a new one.
PWS
I noticed the patch and figured he would be fined for it; no sport has a tighter grip on image than the NFL. If money is at stake, they have a rule about it.
I had not heard about the exception for flag patches.
however, I am not convinced that allowing such patches is unethical.
If you look at pro sports, you could easily see how a league would encourage such displays simply to show the breadth of the sport (and marketing). Suzuki in baseball, Yao Ming in the NBA (or Jokic, or that other guy), hockey, with the Swedes, Russians, Canadians, etc.). It is not as if these people need to advertise their nationality to promote the sport, but, not only could it be a point of pride (I hear that the baseball Hall of Fame ceremony will be dreadful next (?) year if Suzuki is inducted, what with the enormous influx of Japanese fans), it may be good marketing of the sport worldwide (why do you think they had a game in London to begin with?).
-Jut
Bad ethics chess. After October 7? How hard was it to anticipate Israel and Palestine flags being used as political statements?
bad optics? Agreed.
but, it looks like the policy pre-dated the attack last October.
so, what to do? If the policy is benign (an open question), do you change it based upon possible bad actors/bad press?
or, do you say: bite me?
what is the alternative? Ban bad actors? Russian hockey players can’t advertise their nationality, but Ukrainians can?
and the Olympics? You can only represent your country if you are not at war because your presence may offend others.
the non-political response: this is the policy and we are not going to police legitimate expressions under the policy on political grounds
-Jut
Easy: keep politics, nationalism and grandstanding off the field, period. It’s in the US…US flags and anthems, nothing else politically provocative or potentially divisive. The NFL shouldn’t have opened Pandora’s Box.
Interesting he felt comfortable doing this in Londonstan. The EU and the UK are wildly pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel. I can’t see him having done this during a home game, you know (as Jesse Jackson would say), in Hymie Town. Asshole.
Hey Lebanese people and Lebanese leadership: If you want Israel to stop killing enemy fighters in your country and blowing up munitions dumps in your country, stop allowing foreigners to attack Israel from your country while hiding in your cities. It’s not hard.
Read this, Robert:
PressReader.com – Digital Newspaper & Magazine Subscriptions
Remember, the PLO took over Lebanon with help from Syria and Iran in the 1970’s. The majority of the Lebanese people were killed, exiled, or forcibly converted to Islam at that time. That is the thanks they get for being the only country in the region that would take in Palestinian refugees. It is also the reason no Arabic country will take Palestinian refugees. They tried to take over Jordan and were expelled. When the Lebanese Christians agreed to help them…well…you see what happened to them and their country. Look at pictures of Lebanon from before they agreed to help the Palestinians and then after.
There are no Lebanese people in charge in Lebanon. It is run by Palestinian terrorists and their Syrian/Iranian masters. Your appeal to the Lebanese people is futile.
Apparently SECURITY was forced to…um…facilitate Saleh’s departure.
PWS