Alejandro Villanueva “unintentionally” found himself not participating in an anthem protest on Sunday. According to the wife of Titans wide receiver Eric Decker, her husband found himself unintentionally participating in a protest.
Jessie James Decker, wife of Eric Decker, claims her husband had no intention of participating in the Titans anthem demonstration on Sunday. Instead, she claims that the team made a decision to not take the field for the anthem “without him knowing.”
Ironically, the Titans issued a statement after their game against Seattle, in which they said the team opted to not go out on the field because they, “wanted to be unified in our actions today.”
The statement reads, “The players jointly decided this was the best course of action. Our commitment to the military and our community is resolute and the absence of our team for the national anthem shouldn’t be misconstrued as unpatriotic.”
However, according to Jessie James Decker, the decision wasn’t “unified,” because her husband wasn’t a part of it. Decker told TMZ, “My husband was not made aware it was time to go out for the game. Unfortunately a decision was made for him without him knowing.”
Jessie James Decker also wrote a lengthy Instagram post, where she described how much the anthem means to her:
One of my favorite things to do is sing the national anthem. I think about my dad, my uncles, my cousins, both grandfathers who fought in the Vietnam war. I think about how my grandfather paw paw Tim would ask me to sing this song for him every time I saw him and how he would make me turn the other way to sing it so he could just weep and cry as hard as he wanted because it meant so much to him. I think about all of our troops I got to visit with and spend time with in the Middle East when I went over seas to sing for them. I think about all of the men crying because they missed their wives so much, or the man telling me he hadn’t seen his baby girl yet since she was born. When I sing this song I think about them. This song is about them. It’s not about me. That’s what I think about every time I sing it. I love our country so much. And we should all love and respect each other because this is the greatest country in the world. I see the love. I see the unity in all walks of life on a daily basis and It makes me so proud to be an American….. so In the words of Forrest Gump. That’s all I have to say about that.
One certainly hopes this is true however, frankly, it’s hard to believe. How in the world could Eric Decker not know about the entire team not coming out for the national anthem? Moreover, why would the Titans exclude him from the decision-making process? Because his wife is a famous country singer, and it might harm her career? These are people who buy $100,000 earrings and then wear them to go jet skiing. Do people who do that really have the foresight to think through how these decisions might harm the singing careers of their spouses?
That seems unlikely.
However, again, I hope it’s true. One would like to think that the only way someone would find themselves in a national anthem protest is if they didn’t know it was actually happening.