
The NFL Players Association isn't alone in wanting to keep Rush Limbaugh out of professional football. Reverend Al Sharpton has joined the fight to stop the guy who said the NFL is beginning to look like "a fight between the Crips and the Bloods without the weapons" from buying the St. Louis Rams.
Sharpton pointed out that statement in a a letter to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, asking him to reject any bid that includes Limbaugh, according to a TMZ report. He also said:
Rush Limbaugh has been divisive and anti-NFL on several occasions with comments about NFL Players including Michael Vick and Donovan McNabb."
Sharpton was referring to Limbaugh's famous 2003 argument that McNabb, the Philadelphia Eagles quarterback, was getting special treatment in the press because the media wanted to see a black quarterback succeed.
Sharpton's letter to the NFL commissioner follows the players' direct plea to the Goodell to keep Limbaugh out of their sport, as reported by ESPN.
On Saturday, NFL Players executive director DeMaurice Smith sent an e-mail to union's executive committee, saying:
I've spoken to the Commissioner [Roger Goodell] and I understand that this ownership consideration is in the early stages. But sport in America is at its best when it unifies, gives all of us reason to cheer, and when it transcends. Our sport does exactly that when it overcomes division and rejects discrimination and hatred."
Detroit Free Press sportswriter Drew Sharp said in his USA TODAY column that players are prepared to boycott playing in St. Louis if the bidding group that includes Limbaugh is allowed to purchase the team:
Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker James Farrior agreed Sunday that nobody with Limbaugh's litany of incendiary racial comments — Limbaugh once said on his nationally syndicated radio show that slavery "had its merits" — deserves the privilege of owning an NFL franchise.
What do you think? Should the NFL allow Rush Limbaugh to buy a team?