Lettercol: Ways to talk about this whole NFL national anthem thing

We get emails ’round these parts, lots and lots of emails. Here’s the space where we’ll answer a select few of them every Wednesday. Want in? Email me at jay.busbee@yahoo.com or find me on Twitter or Facebook. Now, on with the show.

Say, heard about this anthem business? Colin Kaepernick, Arian Foster, Brandon Marshall, and a bunch of others have decided to protest what they see as pervasive racial discrimination in the United States by sitting, kneeling, and/or raising fists during the national anthem. You know all this, and more to the point, you’ve been voicing your opinions about this. Here’s just a quick glance at a swatch of my inbox after Sunday:

The takes have seared my phone screen to a charred mass of glass and plastic. This bank-shot rant was my favorite:

How can Brady be suspended over a piece of leather and and all of these people be allowed to disrespect our nation and all who have gave their lives for it by disrespecting the American Flag and our National Anthem?
-Ernest H, via email

Deflate-gate AND the anthem scandal! That’s a pretty sweet double-dip there, Ernest. If you’d managed to lasso in the Washington Redskins name battle, it’d be a Dream Team-quality letter. (The answer: it’s the NFL. It’s not supposed to make sense.)

Anyway, you’re sick of hearing about the anthem, and we’re sick of writing about it, but damn if it doesn’t roar back to life every time someone new comes along and offers up his or her scorching angle. Today it was Jerry Jones; tomorrow it might well be Jaxson de Ville.

Chances are your opinion on L’histoire de Kaepernick et de l’Hymne National (it sounds fancier in French) is already hardened and calcified, but in the event you’re still wondering what to think, well, let’s consult America’s real heroes: celebrities. Quite a few athletes, movie stars, musicians, and assorted others have spoken up on the matter, and you can expect more in the weeks to come. So decide what your stance is, and align yourself with a celebrity accordingly.

If you want to go all in for Kaepernick:

If you want to go all in from the other direction:

If you want to acknowledge Kaepernick’s rights, but not so much that you might upset someone:

If you want to lay down the law but leave yourself a bit of room to maneuver:

If you want to sound a very specific kind of summoning horn:

If you aren’t concerned with people digging into your own history:

If you’ve been pounding this beat for decades:

If you want to just watch the world burn:

(Yes, he later apologized.)

Look, whether you believe the protesters are brave noble voices speaking out against the oppression of others or spoiled, entitled millionaires who ought to leave this country if they hate it so much, the one essential truth at the heart of all this, indeed of all the division that rips apart our country at the ideological seams, is that nobody listens to each other. Nobody takes even a single moment to consider that, hey, maybe others may see the world differently than I do, and maybe if I reached across the divide and tried to see the world through the eyes of my fellow Americans, we could rise above all the petty bitching that keeps us from reaching our full poten–

Aw, screw it. Let’s watch some classic TV:

(Thanks to my podcast co-host Kevin Kaduk for that one. Man, there’s pretty much nothing in that video that would fly today, is there?)

Onward…

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Who will the Panthers be playing in Super Bowl 51? (That’s a serious question. They’re going to win the NFC again.)
-John Newsom, NC, via Facebook

Whoa, whoa, you go 15-1 and you dominate the entire planet for all but, oh, sixty pesky gametime minutes and suddenly you’re booking passage right back to the Super Bowl. Easy there, Panthers fans; it’s been nearly a quarter-century since the loser even returned to the Super Bowl (that would be the ‘93 Bills. And prior to that, the ‘92 Bills. And then the ‘91 Bills.) The last time the loser of the Super Bowl won was all the way back in 1972 with the Miami Dolphins. The odds, as they say, are not in your favor. And if Cam Newton has many more evenings like he did last Thursday against Denver, neither will the standings.

Anyway, I like to wait until about late January to make my Super Bowl pick, but what the hell, let’s give it a whirl: I’ll go with Pittsburgh this year. As long as they don’t somehow manage to get themselves suspended all at once–which is always a possibility when you’re talking about Pittsburgh–the Steelers are pound-for-pound the best in the AFC. They’ll ride out Le’Veon Bell’s suspension for the first quarter of the season, and Ben Roethlisberger most likely won’t have to play any more games with his internal organs exposed to the air the way they were in last year’s playoffs.

Steelers vs. Panthers in the Super Bowl! Roethlisberger airing it deep to Antonio Brown! Good thing Carolina’s got the NFL’s best cornerback in Josh Norman—oh, wait, that’s right. Sorry, Carolina.

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My league’s dropping the kicker and going with two quarterbacks. How would you draft, WR, RB, or QBs first?
-Dave Weyant, via Facebook

All right, first off, let me applaud your league for ditching the kicker once and for all. I’m sure Stephen Gostkowski and Dan Bailey and all those other cats are wonderful gentlemen (and in shape enough to bust both you and me over their knee), but come on … why add six points to your bottom line when you can add 26? I’m always in the more-is-more camp with fantasy football–more points for touchdowns, more for receptions, more for faked injuries … so, yeah, I’m all in on your two-QBs idea. And that throws a wrinkle into your draft structure; even a traditional backup like Andy Dalton or Eli Manning is going to outscore most WRs or RBs. Load up on QBs! Let them laugh at you! They laughed at Chip Kelly, too! (Then they fired him, but don’t let that stop you.)

Matter of fact, I’d love to see an NFL team go with a two-QB offense in real life. Now, that means the backup would have to ditch his cushy job of holding a clipboard and listening to NPR on the headset, but still … let’s make AJ McCarron or Matt Cassell earn his freaking salary.

I know, I know, the reason why new formations almost never work is that you need to have a specific set of highly trained improvisational geniuses to offset the decades of hard-wired defensive structure specifically designed to grind cutesy plays into powder. But if you’re, say, the 49ers, what do you have to lose? Football games? Pride? Dignity? All those have been gone for years. Plus, Blaine Gabbert and Colin Kaepernick combined add up to almost 1.5 actual quarterbacks. Do it, San Francisco. Two quarterbacks at once. Make it happen.

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Will the #LetsGoBuffalo Bills finally end their playoff drought?
-@nathanmedic via Twitter

No.

I made a bet last year that I’d drink an entire bottle of wing sauce if the Bills won 10 games. I didn’t get the city of Buffalo to commit to anything, which was too bad because I won said bet. I am, however, willing to entertain offers for a 2016 version. Alas, Buffalo fans are much like Braves fans: you never thought you’d long for the days when you were losing the biggest game of the year, but here we are.

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Which of week 1’s starting young quarterbacks impressed you most? (please say Trevor Siemian…)
-Andy Zachary, via Facebook

All of them, simply because they didn’t soil themselves right there on the field. Look, put yourself in the shoes of a young quarterback. You’ve spent your entire life being better than pretty much anyone you’ve ever seen at your chosen occupation, and now you’ve got a playbook the size of a Thanksgiving turkey to memorize, a horde of opponents larger and faster than anything you’ve ever seen in your life ready to pull you apart like said turkey, a bunch of resentful teammates who’ve made less in their careers than you did on your signing bonus, and a mouthbreathing fanbase that projects all its hopes and dreams onto your shoulders and expects you to cut off your own (non-throwing) arm to demonstrate your loyalty. That’s a lot to ask from a dopey 23-year-old.

Every athlete tells you that the difference between the NFL and college is the speed with which the game moves around, over, and eventually through you. There’s zero margin for error. It’s like a child learning to walk and then being told to go cross a high wire over a 12-lane highway.

But if I had to choose between Siemian, Dak Prescott, Carson Wentz, and Jimmy Garoppolo, well, I have some bad news for Patriots haters …

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Do you see Jimmy G. handing Tom Brady a 4-0 team?
-Nakoma Gabriel Ritter, via Facebook

Yes. God help us all, yes I do. And then Patriots fans will be insufferable AND leading the division, just weeks away from clinching a playoff berth. It’s not fair, it’s not right, but that’s the way it is … when, millennia from now, the sun has gone dark and the cockroaches seek to achieve dominion over the Earth, they’ll lose out every time they visit Gillette Stadium.

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That’ll do it for this week. Reminder that you can get in on this action by sending your questions, rants, conspiracy theories, tailgate recipes and the like to me at the email and social media hangouts below. Let’s close with the latest Grandstanding podcast, where Kevin Kaduk and I kick the poor Cleveland Browns when they’re down.

May all your opponents in life forget to set their lineups…

Podcast: Could the Cleveland Browns go 0-16 this year?

Subscribe to Grandstanding • iTunes • Stitcher • Soundcloud

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Jay Busbee is a writer for Yahoo Sports and the author of EARNHARDT NATION, on sale now at Amazon or wherever books are sold. Contact him at jay.busbee@yahoo.com or find him on Twitter or on Facebook.