Claim that NFL coaches voted to ban kneeling during anthem is satire | Fact check

Joedy McCreary, USA TODAY

The claim: NFL coaches unanimously voted to ban kneeling during the national anthem

An Oct. 2 Facebook post (direct link, archive link) shows photos of NFL coaches Mike Tomlin and Mike McCarthy and Hall of Fame quarterback John Elway.

“NFL Coaches Unanimously Vote to Ban Anthem Kneeling Permanently,” reads text included in the post.

The post was shared more than 100 times in three days.

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Our rating: False

A spokesperson for the NFL said the claim is false. It originated as satire, but the Facebook post gives no indication of that.

Decision would come from team owners, not coaches

NFL spokesperson Tim Schlittner told USA TODAY the claim is “absolutely false.”

Such a move would have been announced by the NFL and reported by legitimate news outlets that cover the league. No such media reports exist, and there was no mention of such a decision on the website where the NFL posts its news releases.

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Decisions that involve players and team personnel are made by the 32 team owners, not the league’s coaches, Schlittner said.

The account that shared the claim posted a link in the comments to an Oct. 2 article on the Viral USA Stories website about the purported decision.

That article appears to be a word-for-word copy of one on satirical website SpaceXMania.com, which clearly labeled the story as satire. SpaceXMania posted the story several hours before it appeared on Viral USA Stories without any satire disclaimers.

The Facebook post is an example of what could be called "stolen satire," where stories written as satire and originally presented that way are reposted in a way that makes them appear to be legitimate news. As a result, readers of the second-generation post are misled, which is what happened here.

A closer look at the post also shows it is a fabrication.

Elway is identified as a coach three times in the story but has never coached an NFL team. He was removed as the Broncos’ general manager in 2020, does not appear in the team’s staff directory and no longer has any contractual tie to the organization, according to The Denver Gazette.

The national discussion about whether a player should stand or kneel during the anthem began in 2016, when former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick took a knee to protest racial inequality. Since then, athletes across sports who protested in similar ways have at times faced public criticism.

Player conduct during the pregame ceremony has been a frequent source of satire and outright misinformation. USA TODAY previously debunked claims that Tomlin cut two players for kneeling, that Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce defied coach Andy Reid's order to kneel and that University of Colorado coach Deion Sanders benched two players for kneeling during the anthem.

USA TODAY reached out to the social media user who shared the post and to the publisher of the SpaceXMania website where the claim originated but did not immediately receive responses.

Lead Stories and the Associated Press also debunked the claim.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Claim of NFL vote to ban kneeling started on satire site | Fact check

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