In the wake of Sunday night’s Las Vegas mass shooting, the NFL and tonight’s home team Kansas City Chiefs will hold a moment of silence prior to the “Monday Night Football” game. The moment will take place before the national anthem, TheWrap has learned.
“The commissioner has asked that there be an on-field moment of silence for Las Vegas before tonight‘s game,” NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy told TheWrap. “This will be a moment of reflection for the victims, their families and loved ones and also for the heroic efforts of the first responders.”
ESPN will televise both the moment of silence and the “Star-Spangled Banner,” we’re told. Though the Disney-owned cable network broke from its own tradition and aired the national anthem last week — at the heights of the NFL players’ protest — producers actually planned on passing this time around. Clearly, plans have changed after Stephen Paddock shot and killed at least 58 people from his room at Las Vegas’ Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino on Sunday.
Hundreds of National Football League players kneeled, ditched or otherwise protested the national anthem last week. The few-minute boycott actually originated last August as San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s lone, silent statement about police brutality and racism in America.
Some joined in last season, though the movement caught fire after President Trump bad-mouthed its participants on Twitter.
The Washington Redskins versus Chiefs game kicks off at 8:30 p.m. ET tonight on ESPN.