The NFL season starts in a few weeks. But it may not be welcome in Mississippi.
Football season has started in Mississippi. Several high schools across the state met Thursday night for the first game of the 2018 season, including Long Beach High School and Pass Christian High School on the Coast.
The NFL has entered its second week of preseason games with the Saints facing the Arizona Cardinals on Friday at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome. But a poll complied by a sports betting website claims that pro football may still be a sore subject in the Magnolia State.
According to a Twitter map created by SportsBetting.ag, Mississippi is among the top states in the nation calling for a boycott of the NFL.
The report has the state in second place behind Florida for number of Tweets sent with the words “boycott the NFL” or using the hashtag #boycottNFL during the first two weeks of preseason ball. The data was created with geotagged software.
“Boycott The NFL” became a popular social media backlash after then-San Fransisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick kneeled during the singing of the national anthem in to show support for the Black Lives Matter campaign. Several players followed Kaepernick’s lead during the remainder of the 2016 and 2017 NFL seasons.
The act of kneeling during the national anthem as a protest device became a political platform for many conservative groups and is a source of contention for President Donald Trump, who frequently uses Twitter as a way to show his displeasure with the practice.
ESPN reports that team owners in May voted unanimously on a policy that mandates players must stand during the national anthem if they are on the field, but it also allows them to stay in the locker room if they wish.
And the controversy has also found its way to one of the most famous NFL players with Mississippi ties — former Mississippi State and current Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott.
The Fort Worth Star Telegram reports that when asked about players kneeling during the anthem, Prescott, who was at training camp in California, said NFL games were not the right venue to protest social injustices.
A mural of Prescott depicting a scene from the horror movie “Get Out,” where the brains of white people were surgically placed into the bodies of African Americans, was painted in Dallas after his remarks, the Star Telegraph reports. The mural has since been taken down.