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As Trump escalates criticisms, NFL seeks to unite amid more anthem protests

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NFL game day dawned Sunday with a powerful display of unity by the Baltimore Ravens’ and Jacksonville Jaguars’ players and coaches, who locked arms on the sideline of London’s Wembley Stadium — some kneeling, others standing — during the singing of the United States national anthem.

Their statement without words, echoed in similar demonstrations nationwide prior to 1 p.m. games, came in response to a three-day campaign by President Trump, who at 6:44 a.m. Sunday renewed his demand that NFL owners “fire or suspend” players who kneel during the national anthem in protest and called on fans to boycott games if the practice continued.

“If NFL fans refuse to go to games until players stop disrespecting our Flag Country, you will see change take place fast. Fire or suspend!” Trump tweeted roughly three hours before kickoff of the NFL’s first game of the day, staged in London as part of an ongoing effort to extend the league’s fan base abroad.

Roughly 30 minutes later, at 7:13 a.m., Trump continued in a second tweet: “NFL attendance and ratings are WAY DOWN. Boring games yes, but many stay away because they love our country. League should back U.S.”

[Live updates: Jaguars owner joins arms with players during national anthem in London]

Trump started his crusade against protesting NFL players during a campaign-style rally in Alabama on Friday night. In his remarks, he made a thinly veiled allusion to former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, whose decision to take a knee during August 2016 preseason games in protest of police violence against minorities initiated the practice and debate. Trump called on NFL coaches to get the “son of a b—” players off the field if they continued to kneel.

The tenor and substance of those remarks, which Trump reiterated via social media over the weekend, triggered reactions from many players, coaches and executives of the NFL’s 32 teams. While far from universally in favor of the form of protest Kaepernick chose, many team owners issued statements defending the rights of players — and all Americans — to express themselves on matters they are passionate about.

In closed-door meetings Saturday night, players and coaches of many teams discussed how to handle the national anthem before Sunday’s kickoffs.

The Pittsburgh Steelers chose to remain in the locker room during the playing of the anthem before their 1 p.m. kickoff in Chicago, while Coach Mike Tomlin took the field with several assistants and left tackle Alejandro Villanueva, a former Army Ranger, stood just outside the locker room tunnel.

Prior to kickoff of the Eagles’ game against the New York Giants, as an enormous American flag was stretched over the field, Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie joined his players, staff and several police officers standing to shoulder to shoulder on Philadelphia’s sideline. Eagles safety Malcolm Jenkins, standing near Lurie, raised his fist. Some Giants kneeled, such as Olivier Vernon, Landon Collins and Damon Harrison, while others stood — each extending an arm to the man beside him.

During pregame ceremonies at Foxborough Stadium, Patriots quarterback Tom Brady locked arms with teammates, putting a hand over his heart, as the anthem played. Some Patriots took a knee, while others stood. Some fans were heard booing the gestures while others chanted, “Stand up.” Similar dissent was heard in Buffalo, where some fans voiced their displeasure by booing as members of the Denver Broncos took knees.

Trump reacted to the showings by tweeting at 2:20 p.m., “Great solidarity for our National Anthem and for our Country. Standing with locked arms is good, kneeling is not acceptable. Bad ratings!”

Redskins players held no teamwide discussions on the anthem Saturday, according to a person in the organization, speaking on condition of anonymity given the sensitive nature of the topic. He characterized the Redskins’ locker room as lacking in outspoken voices on social issues.

Redskins owner Daniel Snyder, among eight NFL owners who have made significant donations to Trump, had no comment “at this time,” a team spokesman said Saturday night and repeated Sunday.

According to Ian Rapoport of NFL.com, the offensive line of the Oakland Raiders, who’ll face the Redskins at FedEx Field in the nationally televised Sunday night game, intends to sit or kneel during the anthem. And Raiders owner Mark Davis told ESPN Sunday that in light of Trump’s comments, he felt he could no longer ask his players not to protest. “The only thing I can ask them to do is do it with class. Do it with pride. Not only do we have to tell people there is something wrong, we have to come up with answers. That’s the challenge in front of us as Americans and human beings.”

Sunday’s mass demonstrations were particularly notable because the NFL demands conformity far more than other pro sports leagues, devoting lengthy sections of its rulebook to the height of players’ socks, for example, the maximum size of towels they may attached to their game-day pants and the permissible forms of “spontaneous celebration.” Players are most prized for executing assignments precisely as directed, and because NFL careers are short and contracts aren’t guaranteed — unlike those of NBA or Major League Baseball players — players speak out often at their own peril.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and DeMaurice Smith, the NFLPA’s executive director, spoke Saturday about President Trump’s comments but didn’t coordinate a response, according to one person close to the situation. Sunday’s on-field displays, rather, were individual teams’ decisions.

The Ravens-Jaguars response reflected that: players and coaches choosing whether to stand or kneel yet linking arms in solidarity. Jacksonville owner Shad Khan joined his squad on the Wembley sideline and explained afterward that he considered it a privilege to show unity and support for diversity of race, faith and opinion in the face of the president’s “divisive and contentious” comments.

By Sunday morning, nearly half the NFL’s 32 owners had issued statements. Among the more notable was New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, a staunch and vocal Trump supporter, as well as a $1 million donor to his inaugural, who wrote that he was “deeply disappointed by the tone of the comments made by the President on Friday.”

“There is no greater unifier in this country than sports and, unfortunately, nothing more divisive than politics,’ Kraft wrote in his statement. “I think our political leaders could learn a lot from the lessons of teamwork and the importance of working together toward a common goal. Our players are intelligent, thoughtful and care deeply about our community and I support their right to peacefully affect social change and raise awareness in a manner that they feel is most impactful.”

[Aaron Rodgers, Tom Brady and other NFL players weigh in on national anthem protests]

On ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin defended Trump’s comments.

“This is about respect for the military, the first responders,” he said. Mnuchin also declined to criticize the coarse language Trump used, saying, “I think the president can use whatever language he wants to use.”

Of the players, Mnuchin said: “They have the right to have their First Amendment off the field. This is a job.”

Another White House official, Director of Legislative Affairs Marc Short, said on NBC News’s “Meet the Press” that Trump is standing with the “vast majority” of Americans who believe the flag “should be respected.”

He added that Trump plans to take more action on improving race relations.

“The president believes it is his role to improve race relations,” Short said.

Seattle’s Pete Carroll was the first NFL head coach to issue a statement about the matter, posting on Facebook and Twitter that “there’s no longer a place to sit silently. It’s time to take a stand.”

Carroll’s statement followed those of Seattle owner Paul Allen and cornerback Richard Sherman.

Wrote Carroll:“We stand for love and justice and civility. We stand for our players and their constitutional rights, just as we stand for equality for all people. We stand against divisiveness and hate and dehumanization. We are in the midst of a tremendously challenging time, a time longing for healing. Change needs to happen; we will stand for change. May we all have the courage to take a stand for our beliefs while not diminishing the rights of others, as this is the beating heart of our democracy. As a team, we are united in a mission to bring people together to help create positive change. We can no longer remain silent.”

Mark Maske and Cindy Boren contributed to this report.

Read more coverage:

Sally Jenkins: NFL shows restraint in the face of vulgarity — and gets it right

The Fix: Trump’s culture war with the NFL is getting very real

‘Surreal’: Curry, Warriors have plenty to say about not visiting the White House

First baseball player joins protest: ‘To single out NFL players for doing this isn’t something we should be doing’

Perspective: Why is Kaepernick taking a knee different from when Tebow does it?

Merkel heads for another term in Germany, but far right spoils the party

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BERLIN — German Chancellor Angela Merkel was on course to claim a fourth term in office Sunday even as the far right spoiled her victory party, surging into parliament for the first time in more than half a century, according to projections based on exit polls and official results following a nationwide vote.

The results represented at least a partial affirmation of Merkel’s emphasis on Germany’s stability and economic prosperity at a time of upheaval elsewhere around the globe. They clear the way for her to extend her 12-year stewardship to 16, which would tie the record for postwar Germany.

But the groundswell of support for the far right upended any notion that Europe’s largest economy and most important geopolitical player is immune to the populist currents roiling other democracies across the West. It also revealed the depths of lingering resentment toward Merkel’s 2015 decision to welcome more than a million asylum seekers amid the European refugee crisis.

Taken together, the results are likely to complicate Merkel’s ambitions for her final term, with thorny coalition negotiations to come in the weeks ahead, while giving the bomb-throwing Alternative for Germany party (AfD) a prominent platform to influence politics in a country where civility and consensus have long been prized.

“It’s a huge change in the political landscape,” said Hans Kundnani, a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund. “It will change the nature of debate in the Bundestag.”

The anti-immigration, anti-Islam AfD, founded just four years ago, was on pace to take third place with 13 percent of the vote, according to projections. That’s nearly triple its 2013 result, and matches the outer limit of its support in pre-election polls.

True to its combative reputation, the party wasted no time in vowing to use its voice in the Bundestag, the German parliament, to cause trouble for the government — including by investigating Merkel’s refugee-related decision-making.

“We’re going to hunt Merkel,” Alexander Gauland, the AfD’s co-leader, told cheering supporters. “We’re going to get Germany back.”

Projections showed that Merkel’s center-right Christian Democratic Union won approximately 33 percent — down several points from what most pre-election polls had predicted, and a full seven points lower than its result in 2013. The vote share was among the lowest ever for the party, which has governed Germany for most of its post-war history.

“We’re not going to beat around the bush. We were hoping for a better result,” a restrained Merkel told supporters at CDU election night headquarters in central Berlin. 

While promising to remain as chancellor, Merkel also acknowledged the “strong challenge” from the AfD and its voters. 

“We want to win them back,” she said. “We want to address their fears and concerns.”

The center-left Social Democrats (SPD) were expected to place a distant second with about 20 percent of the vote, a dismal result for Merkel’s coalition partner of the past four years. 

“Taking in so many refugees split the nation, that has become clear,” SPD leader Martin Schulz told supporters. “We didn’t manage to convince a segment of our society that our country is strong enough to handle the task.”

Schulz said the party would not join another government, and would instead go into opposition to offer voters a clear alternative to the CDU for the next election. The decision leaves Merkel with few options for reaching a governing majority. 

Her only viable one may be a so-called Jamaica coalition, a reference to the colors of the three parties that would take part: Merkel’s CDU, the pro-business Free Democrats and the Greens.

But that could be a tricky arrangement given the two junior parties’ differences on key economic and foreign policies. The Greens, in particular, said Sunday they would put strict conditions on their participation.

“We don’t want to govern just to govern,” said Cem Özdemir, co-leader of the Greens.

Kundnani said the Greens — who have already had a run in government with the Social Democrats — will be reluctant to do a deal that could force them to sacrifice core principles. 

“This is going to be a very right-wing government one way or another,” he said.

Still, there will be significant pressure on the parties to strike a deal. Without one, Germany could be forced to hold new elections, an outcome that the mainstream parties will fear would only further strengthen the AfD.

Sunday’s vote continues a Europe-wide trend toward fragmentation, as the two major parties both lost support and the smaller parties gained. The Bundestag will now be crowded with six parties that span the ideological spectrum from far-right to far-left. 

The result follows a relatively low-key campaign in which the major parties largely ducked the chance to challenge Merkel. Despite the lack of pre-election intrigue, turnout was higher than usual, with over three quarters of Germany’s 61 million voters casting ballots from the Baltic Sea to the Alps.

Exit polls showed that many of the AfD’s voters were casting ballots for the first time, while supporters of other parties said they showed up to try to block the party.

“We have to counter the right-wing people,” said Abdessamad Mendoui, a 75-year-old who immigrated to Germany 55 years ago from Morocco, and who walked slowly on Sunday to his polling place in the western city of Frankfurt.

To Merkel’s backers, the election was a chance to endorse German stability at a historically fraught time.

“It doesn’t look good in the world. If you listen to that guy in America and also in the East with his atomic weapons, you get scared,” said Elida Baller, 84, referring to President Trump and Kim Jong Un, the North Korean leader. 

But the AfD’s support was higher than many Germans had thought possible in a country where the memory of extreme-right-wing government is a source of profound national shame.

“For me, the AfD is a Nazi party,” said Hannelore Weimann, 81, after voting in Berlin. “I experienced World War II and I have seen the history and I don’t understand how people can vote for a party like this.”

The party was founded in 2013 as a protest against European bailouts for Greece, and that year it barely missed the 5 percent cutoff for making it into the Bundestag.

But its popularity has surged on the back of resistance to Merkel’s decision in 2015 to open the country’s borders to hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers fleeing war, oppression and extreme poverty. 

The party was especially strong in the former East Germany, winning 23 percent there — compared to just 11 percent in the west.

Jens Töpfer, 36, an engineer who cast one of his two ballots Sunday for the AfD, said he is afraid that Germany is being overrun by refugees. And that could bring dire consequences for the next generation, he said, pointing to his 2-year-old son. 

“Refugees have a different culture that doesn’t fit in here,” he said. “They should go back where they came from and fight for their freedom and reconstruction.”

Germany’s other major parties were united in speaking out against the AfD. Schulz called the far-right party “the gravediggers of democracy.” 

The AfD’s supporters have countered that Merkel is the real threat to democracy, and that her 12-year run — now likely to extend to 16, tying a record set by Helmut Kohl — has stifled debate. 

It’s a view that is shared even by non-AfD voters who have grown frustrated by the robust consensus of the political establishment.

“Every four years we can vote for the person who drives the train, ” said Hubert Lützelberger, 67, a former accountant who cast one of his votes for Die Linke, the far-left party. “But we can’t change the direction of the train.”

. 

Isaac Stanley Becker and Alexandra Rojkov in Brandenburg an der Havel, Rick Noack in Berlin, and Souad Mekhennet in Frankfurt contributed to this report. 

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Kushner used private email to conduct White House business

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Presidential son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner has corresponded with other administration officials about White House matters through a private email account set up during the transition last December, part of a larger pattern of Trump administration aides using personal email accounts for government business.

Kushner uses his private account alongside his official White House email account, sometimes trading emails with senior White House officials, outside advisers and others about media coverage, event planning and other subjects, according to four people familiar with the correspondence. POLITICO has seen and verified about two dozen emails.

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“Mr. Kushner uses his White House email address to conduct White House business,” Abbe Lowell, a lawyer for Kushner, said in a statement Sunday. “Fewer than 100 emails from January through August were either sent to or returned by Mr. Kushner to colleagues in the White House from his personal email account. These usually forwarded news articles or political commentary and most often occurred when someone initiated the exchange by sending an email to his personal rather than his White House address.”

Aides who have exchanged emails with Kushner on his private account since President Donald Trump took office in January include former chief of staff Reince Priebus, former chief strategist Steve Bannon, National Economic Council director Gary Cohn, and spokesman Josh Raffel, according to emails described to or shown to POLITICO. In some cases, those White House officials have emailed Kushner’s account first, said people familiar with the messages.

The decision to set up new, private accounts as Kushner was preparing to enter the White House came in the wake of a bitter election campaign in which Trump routinely excoriated his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton for using a personal email account to handle government business when she was secretary of state.

There is no indication that Kushner has shared any sensitive or classified material on his private account, or that he relies on his private email account more than his official White House account to conduct government business. Aides say he prefers to call or text over using email.

Still, Kushner and his wife, Ivanka Trump, set up their private family domain late last year before moving to Washington from New York, according to people with knowledge of events as well as publicly available internet registration records. At the time, Kushner — who served as a senior campaign adviser — was expected to be named to a White House role, while Ivanka Trump was publicly saying she didn’t plan to work in her father’s administration.

Kushner’s representatives declined to detail the server or security measures on it.

People familiar with the account say it was primarily set up for Kushner’s personal communications, but he has used it to communicate with acquaintances outside the White House about matters relating to Trump and the administration, according to people who have received messages, as well as with his White House colleagues.

Kushner has been under scrutiny in the ongoing Russia probes, which have expanded to include potential obstruction of justice by the president and his aides since January, and Kushner’s private email traffic may also be of interest to FBI and congressional investigators.

Ivanka Trump, now an assistant to the president, has an email account on the same domain, they said. POLITICO has not seen Ivanka Trump’s correspondence, and there is no indication that she used her account to discuss government business.

Private email traffic among White House aides — some of it sent between personal email accounts rather than to or from government addresses — could skirt the requirements of the Presidential Records Act, which requires all documents related to the president’s personal and political activities to be archived. Trump himself is not known to use email but occasionally has email messages to his assistant printed and presented to him.

Lowell said Kushner has adhered to government record-keeping requirements by forwarding all the emails to his account, though POLITICO could not verify that.

Other White House officials have also sometimes used personal accounts to correspond with Kushner and with each other, according to emails seen by POLITICO and people familiar with Kushner’s correspondence. They have also used encrypted apps like Signal and Confide that automatically delete messages, prompting former press secretary Sean Spicer in February to issue a warning to communications staffers that using such apps could violate the Presidential Records Act.

The use of personal email accounts in the Trump White House has been somewhat common, even though the president has been a harsh critic of Clinton’s private email habits, frequently leading “lock her up” chants as he traveled across the country on the campaign trail.

“It was an incredibly effective attack,” said Evan Siegfried, a GOP consultant. “He did a great job of injecting the emails into the mainstream.”

Clinton was the target of an extensive FBI investigation, overseen by former FBI Director James Comey, into whether she mishandled classified material by sending or receiving it via her non-government email address.

In her newly released memoir, Clinton cited the investigation into her email practices as one reason for her defeat. Comey, who in July 2016 formally cleared her of any wrongdoing, reopened the issue in late October, days before the election, after finding a cache of emails backed up on a computer belonging to Anthony Weiner, the husband of Clinton’s top aide Huma Abedin.

The 2016 election was also shaped by the release of hacked emails stolen from the Democratic National Committee as well as from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta. The hack is being investigated as part of FBI special counsel Robert Mueller’s wide-ranging probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

A former Obama administration lawyer said aides were asked to not use personal email accounts for official or political business but that occasionally an aide would send a message and later forward it to their account.

If emails related to Trump aren’t saved, it could be difficult for historians, according to Julian Zelizer, a presidential historian at Princeton University. Zelizer said that historians can provide a richer history of how administrations work — and historians have feared for years that the proliferation of email will lead some people to do their business in ways in which the records can’t be archived. Zelizer said it could also make the job more difficult for investigators seeking to understand parts of the White House.

“There’s a reason we require officials to keep those records,” said Zelizer. “Even if 80 percent of someone’s records are not interesting, the other 20 percent can be very illuminating on how an administration worked.”

NFL Week 3: Trump praises ‘solidarity’ as Seahawks and Titans stay in locker room

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Top Story Lines | Injury News
Fantasy Football | ATS Betting Tips/Picks

[Looking for Redskins coverage? Click here.]

NFL players across the country sent a powerful message to President Trump, responding to his speech and latest tweet urging owners to “fire or suspend” players who protest by not standing for the national anthem.

The nationwide display was one the president praised in a midafternoon tweet, in which he stated that “Standing with locked arms is good, kneeling is not acceptable. Bad ratings!”

The day of demonstrations began in London, with the 9:30 a.m. EDT kickoff between the Baltimore Ravens and Jacksonville Jaguars and they only intensified as the 1 p.m. games arrived. Most vivid was the sight of the empty Pittsburgh Steelers sideline in Chicago. Coach Mike Tomlin preferred to keep his players in the locker room altogether and two other teams followed suit later in the day.

Here’s the visual of the empty @steelers sideline for the national anthem. (📷: @rrdawson22 )

A post shared by Albert Breer (@albert_breer) on Sep 24, 2017 at 10:20am PDT

Steelers offensive tackle Alejandro Villanueva, a former Army Ranger, chose to stand at the head of the tunnel leading onto the field rather than remain in the locker room. Although Tomlin and several members of the staff were on the field, the team remained inside.

Both the Seattle Seahawks and Tennessee Titans followed the Steelers’ example. The Seahawks said in a statement: “As a team, we have decided we will not participate in the national anthem. We will not stand for the injustice that has plagued people of color in this country. Out of love for our country and in honor of the sacrifices made on our behalf, we unite to oppose those that would deny our most basic freedoms. We remain committed in continuing to work towards equality and justice for all.”

The scene was a little different in Gillette Stadium, where a few New England Patriots players took a knee and fans booed and chanted “Stand Up!”

In Philadelphia, Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie stood on the sideline during the anthem and safety Malcolm Jenkins, as he always does, raised his fist. Eagles players linked arms  as did Giants players across the field.

In London, before the start of the day’s first NFL game, Ravens Coach John Harbaugh joined his players, linking arms, and Ravens Hall of Famer Ray Lewis took a knee. Jaguars owner Shahid Khan locked arms with his players and the Jaguars’ coaches. Khan, who donated to Trump’s inaugural committee, was the second owner to participate in events related to anthem protests. Cleveland Browns owner Jimmy Haslam stood on field and locked arms with players, military personnel and first responders in Week 1 of the 2017 season. More joined as the day went on.

In Detroit, Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank joined his players on the field.

Three Packers players took a knee as other players, including quarterback Aaron Rodgers, joined arms.

The pregame demonstrations overshadowed a number of entertaining and closely contested 1 p.m. games.

The Bears and Steelers needed overtime with Chicago scoring two touchdowns before being handed the win. A video review overturned an electric, would-be game-ending 73-yard run by Tarik Cohen on the second play of the extra session. Instead the play was ruled out of bounds after a 36 yard gain. The Bears’ Jordan Howard scored later on that drive with a 19-yard touchdown run to give Chicago its first win of the season, while handing Pittsburgh its first loss.

The New England Patriots nearly fell to 1-2 at the hands of rookie quarterback Deshaun Watson and the Houston Texans. Instead it was Tom Brady finding Brandin Cooks for the game-winning touchdown and two-point conversion with 23 seconds remaining to rally the Patriots to a 36-33 victory.

In Philadelphia, rookie Eagles kicker Jake Elliott blasted a 61-yard field goal to send the New York Giants to an 0-3 start, despite two touchdown catches – and two interesting celebrations – from wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr.

Detroit suffered disappointment on the final play of the game. Wide receiver Golden Tate appeared to score a game-winning touchdown with 6 seconds remaining. On review, Tate was ruled down at the half yard line. By rule, the review required a 10-second runoff, ending the game and giving the Falcons a 30-26 win. Atlanta starts that season with a record of 3-0.

The game in London offered the first visible response to Trump’s Sunday morning messages.

“If NFL fans refuse to go to games until players stop disrespecting our Flag Country,” Trump tweeted at 6:44 a.m., “you will see change take place fast. Fire or suspend!”

Trump went on to add that “NFL attendance and ratings [are] WAY DOWN. Boring games yes, but many stay away because they love our country. League should back U.S.”

[Jenkins: NFL shows its restraint in the face of vulgarity — and gets it right]

That continued a Friday night tirade in which President Trump used a profanity to describe NFL players who kneel during the national anthem to protest police brutality and social inequality brought a torrent of responses from players, the NFL commissioner, the head of the NFL players’ union and more than a half-dozen owners. It brought condemnation from the NBA’s biggest stars and ensured that Sunday’s games will now focus on the White House.

Patriots owner Robert Kraft, who gave $1 million to Trump’s inaugural and presented him with a Super Bowl LI ring, said in a statement Sunday that he was “deeply disappointed by the tone” of Trump’s comments.

“I am proud to be associated with so many players who make such tremendous contributions in positively impacting our communities,” Kraft said. “Their efforts, both on and off the field, help bring people together and make our community stronger. There is no greater unifier in this country than sports and, unfortunately, nothing more divisive than politics. I think our political leaders could learn a lot from the lessons of teamwork and the importance of working together toward a common goal. Our players are intelligent, thoughtful and care deeply about our community and I support their right to peacefully affect social change and raise awareness in a manner that they feel is most impactful.”

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin defended Trump’s comments, saying that players “have the right to have their First Amendment off the field. This is a job.”

The Raiders’ starting offensive linemen, who comprise the only African-American unit in the league, plan to kneel or sit as a group Sunday night, the NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport reports. They have the full support of owner Mark Davis, who told ESPN: “Over the last year … the streets have gotten hot and there has been a lot of static in the air and recently, fuel has been added to the fire. I can no longer ask our team to not say something while they are in a Raider uniform. The only thing I can ask them to do is do it with class. Do it with pride. Not only do we have to tell people there is something wrong, we have to come up with answers. That’s the challenge in front of us as Americans and human beings.”

Top Story Lines

Marshawn Lynch and the Raiders are ready for one last ride. Like The Post’s Kent Babb, you’re not invited.

Four NFL players push Roger Goodell for activism month. Will the NFL be more open to the idea of expanding “Cleats for a Cause” week?

The president has had a long, stormy relationship with football. The word “unrequited” describes Trump’s feelings for the NFL.

Chris Long of the Eagles makes a donation. The Charlottesville native is donating six game checks to fund scholarships after the violence there.

Trump turns sports into a political battleground. The NFL and the NBA were squarely in the president’s sights.

Did the NFL make a mistake in putting two teams in LA? Never mind Thursday night’s exciting game. The interest hasn’t sparked yet.

Keep an eye on Jared Goff’s emergence. The future of the Redskins’ Kirk Cousin may be affected by it.

The Giants, Seahawks and Texans need to fix their offensive lines. It’s already Week 3.

S’ua Cravens offers little clue about his future. Will he play again for the Redskins or has he really, truly retired?

The Redskins’ plan for the Raiders includes plenty of running plays. If it’s not broken, there’s no need to fix it.


Injury News

Ravens wide receiver Jeremy Maclin left the London game against the Jaguars to be evaluated for a concussion, but later returned to the game. Kelvin Benjamin left the Panthers’ game against the Saints and did not return after sustaining a leg injury.

Here are the inactives for the 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. games.

1 p.m. Inactives

Sammie Coates

Alfred Blue

Jordan Leggett

Stephon Tuitt

Myles Garrett

Vontae Davis

Chris Baker

Brent Grimes

Dont’a Hightower

Eric Rowe

Jordan Phillips

Rontez Miles

Rodney McLeod

4 p.m. inactives

Randall Cobb

Derron Smith

Mike Daniels

Jake Ryan

Davon House

Kentrell Brice

Hayes Pullard III

 

Ruled out Sunday

Andrew Luck

Sam Bradford

Tyler Eifert

John Ross

Rex Burkhead

Corey Davis

John Brown


Fantasy football advice

Trade advice: A.J. Green could be on the way up. (Read more.)

Sit/start advice for Week 3: C.J. Anderson will return to earth.

Fantasy scout: Can the Bengals’ fantasy stars be saved?

Here’s what you need to be watching this week. (Read more.)

Week 3 cheat sheet

Everything you need to know before you set your lineup. (Read more.)

The Fantasy Football Beat

The Post’s fantasy football experts get you ready for Week 3. (Listen.)

 


ATS Betting Tips/Picks

Week 3 NFL ATS picks

The top trends and insights from Las Vegas. (Read more.)