Conservative talker and Outkick founder Clay Travis responded on Friday to an announcement from the NFL’s Washington Commanders that defensive coordinator Jack Del Rio has been fined $100,000 by the team after making comments about the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol Building.
In his response, Travis also noted how that incident is being treated so much different than the Black Lives Matter-related riots that took place literally for months, a record cost to insurance companies for damages, during the summer of 2020.
“This is unbelievable propaganda,” Travis said in analyzing a statement put out by head coach Ron Rivera on behalf of the Commanders, Fox News reported.
Del Rio first commented on the Jan. 6 insurrection via Twitter on Monday, when he asked to know “the whole story” about the BLM protests during the summer of 2020 in response to the George Floyd killing. His initial tweet was in response to another tweet seeking to shed light on the Jan. 6 riot.
Would love to understand “the whole story “ about why the summer of riots, looting, burning and the destruction of personal property is never discussed but this is ???#CommonSense
— Jack Del Rio (@coachdelrio) June 7, 2022
The Sporting News added:
Reporters on Wednesday asked Del Rio if his players — many of whom are Black — would take issue with his comments equating the insurrection attempt to BLM protests. Del Rio doubled down on his initial comments, saying he was only asking a question and that he wasn’t worried about players having an issue with what he said.
“Let’s get right down to it, what did I ask? A simple question. Why are not looking into (the protests) if we’re gonna talk about (the riot)? Why are [we] not looking into those things? Because it’s kinda hard for me to say, I can realistically look at it. I see the images on TV, people’s livelihoods are being destroyed, businesses are being burned down. No problem. And then we have a ‘dust-up’ at the capital, nothing burned down. And we’re gonna make that a major deal. I just think it’s kinda two standards,” Del Rio said.
Initially, when asked about Del Rio’s comments, Rivera said “everyone’s entitled to their opinion” and added if the comments became an issue in the locker room, “how I deal with it I’m not going to share with you guys because it’s going to be a private matter.”
But apparently, Del Rio doesn’t have an unfettered right to his opinion.
— Washington Commanders (@Commanders) June 10, 2022
Travis went on to point out that “these were not mostly peaceful protests, these were largely violent protests, and no one has conducted any kind of investigation to determine how did all of these riots happen in the summer of 2020 and who was behind instigating them?”
He then said if athletes are able to share their political opinions while in uniform and at work, without suffering any consequences, then Del Rio should be able to as well.
“The OutKick founder noted that if Del Rio were to fight this fine, he would have a lot more respect for him, especially because he even apologized for his comments, even though Clay thinks he shouldn’t have done that because his comments were valid,” Fox News added.
“It’s hard to argue that this is anything other than content-based discrimination on behalf of an NFL franchise,” Travis added.
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