Eric Reid is not happy.
After leaving the Player’s Coalition, the group that’s been negotiating with the league in light of the national anthem protests, earlier this week, Reid slammed the NFL’s plans to donate $89 million to social justice causes, saying in an interview with Slate that the league is diverting money from other charitable ventures — including breast cancer awareness and “Salute to Service” — and that the NFL is only willing to donate with the expectation that players will stop protesting.
“[NFL Commissioner] Roger Goodell is trying to make this as easy for the owners to agree to as possible so that—again, their goal is to end the protests,” Reid said. “He’s trying to make it as easy possible to do that for the owners. He’s going to present them with a proposal saying, Look you really don’t have to do anything. We’re just going to shift this money from this area and just move it here.”
“Based on my understanding, every player who was actually protesting [aside from Malcolm Jenkins] was not in agreement [with] this proposal,” Reid told Slate. “That leaves a remaining, I guess, nine or so players who don’t protest who were in agreement with the proposal…. I think [it’s] obvious that these [nine non-protesters] are people who have not sacrificed their careers, who Malcolm is using as his backing to say that the coalition is in agreement.”
In addition to Reid, Dolphins safety Michael Thomas also left the coalition earlier this week. The tipping point for both came when they discovered that Eagles safety Malcolm Jankins, who started the coalition with Anquan Boldin, had discussions with the NFL that did not involve Reid or Thomas, and that Jenkins told the NFL that players would end demonstrations if money was donated by the league to certain initiatives, according to Reid.
“That was never discussed at any point. I feel like I’ve been misled,” Reid told ESPN. “I won’t accuse Malcolm of directly lying to me, because I don’t think he’s that type of guy. But I will say he’s misled us. And shoot, if that’s what lying is, then that’s what it is.”
Reid also claims that Jenkins kicked Colin Kaepernick out of the coalition, something Jenkins denies.