The Bears spent Monday’s team meetings discussing the issues surrounding the killing of George Floyd that have dominated the national landscape over the last two weeks and it won’t be the last time that the team has a conversation about those matters.
Head coach Matt Nagy canceled Tuesday’s meetings in order to give players space to continue working through their feelings and told reporters on Wednesday that he expects to have further talks as the season draws closer. One of the topics he expects to come up is going to be the prospect of players demonstrating by kneeling during the playing of the national anthem or otherwise expressing their protest of current conditions.
“I know that’s a big discussion,” Nagy said, via Jason Lieser of the Chicago Sun-Times. “Whatever we end up doing together, it would be that [together]. What the players want to do, we’ll do. We’re gonna listen. We’ll talk through it. Then whatever we all decide to do, or they decide to do, we’ll do that. I know that we’ll do it together.”
Nagy didn’t say what he would do if there isn’t unanimity among the players, but the Bears and everyone else in the NFL have some time ahead of them to sort it out.