“I just said that I’m not trying to make a division within the community of NFL players,” Bennett said, per ESPN.com. “I’m just trying to bring unity, basically. Sometimes you read things, and it comes out like I’m saying that that’s the main person. But I’m just saying that we need to work together to come together with what’s going on and figure a way, how can we be better? How can we be better influencers?”
PHOTOS: Athletes as activists
At training camp Saturday, Bennett — wearing a Black Lives Matter T-shirt — called on NFL players, particularly star black players, to speak out about the issues impacting their communities.
“In the NBA, everybody is standing up for it, so the greatest players are in the forefront of the movement,” Bennett said Saturday. “… Our great players are sitting back just taking the dollars, whether it’s Cam Newton, all these guys. They’re not really on the forefront of trying to change what’s going on.”
STEELE: Michael Jordan had a voice all along, and never used it
In a separate piece, Pro Football Talk reports that the Seahawks removed Bennett’s reference to Newton in the official transcript of the press conference and also edited Bennett out the video posted on the team’s website.
Had it not been for a story written by Sheil Kapadia of ESPN.com, the fact that Bennett pointed specifically to Newton may never have been made public.
