FLORHAM PARK, NJ—Brandon Marshall continues to play the race card where it doesn’t apply.
Tuesday, on Showtime’s Inside the NFL, the talented New York Jets receiver said about the reversal of Tom Brady’s four-game suspension, “The race card. There are a lot of players out there that believe that white players—specifically, at the quarterback position—are treated differently.”
If Marshall is accusing the NFL of racism, this is a pretty poor example. The NFL threw the book at Brady for his alleged role in the football deflation scandal. Federal Judge Richard Berman reversed the four-game suspension. Roger Goodell upheld it.
So is Marshall calling the Bill Clinton-appointed judge a racist?
“It had nothing to do with the judge. It’s what I thought was the opinion of a bunch of players. It had nothing to do with the case. It was just the approach,” Marshall said on Thursday, when asked about his comments on Showtime.
Marshall gave no examples of systemic racism in the NFL.
The NFL is post-racial. It’s a great landscape for African-Americans, providing tons of jobs as players, coaches, scouts, game officials, and in the league office. The head of the players’ union championing Brady’s case is also black. Marshall’s team, the New York Jets, hired a black head coach, Todd Bowles, during the offseason.
The NFL faces plenty of issues right now. Racism isn’t one of them.