Poe the Raven
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- Mar 16, 2019
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Ravens outside linebacker Matthew Judon criticized NFL commissioner Roger Goodell for taking so long to support NFL players in their protest of police brutality and systemic racism.
“It’s not when Roger Goodell came out and said black lives matter, now everybody can say it,” Judon said Monday during a video conference with reporters, via Jamison Hensley of ESPN. “I think we should have been questioning why Roger Goodell didn’t say black lives matter when he was born, or when he became commissioner or when he was reelected commissioner. . . . It’s not cool that Roger Goodell said it. He should’ve been saying it.”
Goodell released a video June 5, a day after 18 NFL players applied pressure to the league in a video. The commissioner admitted the league was wrong for not listening to its players sooner.
Judon has been active in the community, speaking to politicians about criminal justice reform and meeting with law enforcement officials.
“I’m with all the protests that we have to do and all the progress that we have to make,” Judon said. “I’m with of that, but it’s not because Roger Goodell said, ‘Black lives matter.’
“We’re all here for a common goal, and it’s usually to win football games. But right now, it’s bigger than football.”
Judon was among the Ravens who took a knee before the team’s game in London in 2017. He, like other NFL players, remain frustrated no team has given Colin Kaepernick a job.
The former 49ers quarterback last played in the NFL in 2016, the year he began protesting police brutality and social injustice by kneeling for the national anthem. On Monday, Goodell encouraged teams to consider signing Kaepernick.
“There shouldn’t have been pushback,” Judon said. “It should have been like, ‘OK, let’s help this man in his cause.’ That was just his way of expressing it.”