About 3 1/2 hours after President Donald Trump revoked the Eagles' invitation to the White House on Monday night, the Eagles released a statement.
It noticably lacked teeth.
As far as statements go, this was 48 words of nothing.
pic.twitter.com/2HUoFhVc33— Philadelphia Eagles (@Eagles) June 5, 2018
See? Nothing.
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Plenty of folks seemed to enjoy the statement. They viewed it as the Eagles' taking the high road. Many folks also seemed to enjoy that the Eagles didn't even mention the president's name. Fair enough.
But there was plenty of ground between that toothless statement and the scathing one released by Philly mayor Jim Kenney, in which he called Trump a "fragile egomaniac."
Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie had an opportunity and a responsibility to defend his players and passed. That's a shame, especially because it comes not long after he failed to even address the national anthem policy in his last statement when that policy passed.
In fact, Lurie's name didn't even appear on the statement the Eagles sent out on Monday evening. That tepid string of words was attributed to a faceless franchise.
So I hereby offer my services to the Eagles and Lurie. Here's a statement I wrote that would have worked much better, one the Eagles' owner should have put his name on:
I'm proud of our players and our organization for embodying everything it means to be underdogs during our historic Super Bowl run this past season. I'm incredibly proud of our players for their on-field efforts, but am just as proud of them for their contributions to their communities off the field. Our players have lifted their voices, and then backed them up with actions, to positively change our country. They are true patriots. Our players have so much respect for our nation they have used their celebrity and platform to fight for important causes, like social and racial injustice, poverty and educational inequality. We have enjoyed celebrating our first Super Bowl championship with the great and deserving fans of Philadelphia and are disappointed some chose to hijack the spotlight. Our players and our team will remain steadfast in our commitment to our communities, while also preparing for the 2018 season. We hope to be in the same position next year.
It still takes the high road. If the goal was to treat the president like Lord Voldemort and not mention his name, mission accomplished.
But more importantly, it defends Eagles players, whom the president made out to be anti-American. It makes it known that they're more than the disrespectful players the president has made them out to be.
That wasn't so hard, was it?
