It Was About the Hat, Not the Message

The NFL has fined Nick Bosa of the San Francisco 49ers $11,225 for wearing a MAGA hat on the sideline.

The fine wasn't for the message on the hat. I suspect that most of the owners of the 32 NFL teams would be fine with it.

But the NFL has this fetish about conformity. The league will fine you for wearing your socks wrong. When Johnny Unitas of the Baltimore Colts, possibly the greatest quarterback of all time, died in 2002, Peyton Manning, then playing for the Indianapolis version of the Colts, wanted to pay tribute by wearing Unitas' signature item, black high-top cleats, in his next game. The NFL said no, and you'll be fined if you do.

When Pat Tillman, formerly of the Arizona Cardinals, died in the Iraq War in 2004, every player wore a #40 sticker on his helmet for their next game. But when Jake Plummer, his quarterback in college (Arizona State) and the NFL, wanted to continue to wear the sticker for the rest of the season, the NFL refused to allow it.

So much for supporting our troops.

Bosa has a history of garbage: Racist and homophobic tweets, praising Trump's call for violence against protesters; multiple tweets that purport that illegal immigrants and refugees cause crime; and multiple Instagram posts with hashtags that included the N-word" pro-rape language, and a homophobic slur.

He once called former 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick a "clown" for his protests against police brutality and racial inequality. He said he had to delete that tweet, because "There is a chance I might end up in San Francisco." After being drafted by the 49ers in 2019, Bosa apologized for the posts in a press conference.

The NFL had no problem with the stupid hat. They should have. It was indicative of a larger problem.

And all this has been relatively early in Bosa's career, so we would be on shaky ground if we blamed CTE.