'It's a cover-up!' - NFL fans unhappy about timing of Sean Taylor's jersey retirement
Late Washington safety Sean Taylor will be having his jersey retired this weekend, albeit not in the best of circumstances. It has been a chaotic last few days for the NFL as a whole, with Jon Gruden's leaked emails as part of the Washington Football Team’s workplace misconduct investigation. Now the franchise has incurred more backlash.
On Thursday, the organization announced that it will be retiring late Pro Bowl safety Sean Taylor's number this weekend. Normally the team gives details months in advance. However, this time there was little to no knowledge of the event. It has not gone down well.
The Washington Football Team announced that it will officially retire the late Sean Taylor's No. 21 in a pregame ceremony before Sunday's home game against the Chiefs.
The last-minute timing of the jersey retirement has been met with some serious criticism even as the whole organization continues to deal with several off-field issues.
As mentioned earlier, the franchise usually promotes retirement ceremonies weeks and months in advance. Bobby Mitchell’s jersey retirement in September was announced in June. However, the team’s announcement to retire Taylor’s famous No. 21 comes just three days before the team is due to play Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs.
The organization released a statement claiming that the jersey retirement had been worked on before the 2021/22 season started and apologized for the lack of prior notice. The team’s president, Jason Wright, echoed similar sentiments in a Twitter post.
“We wanted to do something long overdue by retiring players’ numbers,” Wright tweeted. “Months ago we planned for Bobby Mitchell and Sean Taylor to be the first two. Seeing the reaction, I’m very sorry that the short notice does not properly reflect the impact Sean had.”
The timing of the jersey retirement has not gone down well with fans and media personalities alike, as it comes amid the Jon Gruden email scandal that saw the 58-year-old NFL coach resign as the Las Vegas Raiders head coach.
Taylor jersey retirement met with skepticisim
There has been plenty of reaction to the team's announcement of Taylor's jersey retirement and it's not all good.
They didn't retire it on the 10 year anniversary of his death in 2017.
They aren't retiring it on the anniversary of his death this year.
They're retiring it, with 4 days notice, in the midst of an off-field scandal.
Sean Taylor is the GOAT.
Don't use him as a distraction. twitter.com/BarstoolNate/s…
Using Sean Taylor as a PR stunt and retiring his number on 3 days notice is everything you need to know about how slimey Dan Snyder can be. Truly just a bad person through and through.
Washington Football Team is making a mess of Sean Taylor's jersey retirement trib.al/9vY8Aq3 https://t.co/cFxhyOyb3q
Having their jersey retired is one of the most prestigious celebrations of an NFL player's career and is usually met with jubilation. However, such is not the case at this time.
The current situation that associates the franchise with Jon Gruden's emails amidst an investigation into workplace misconduct disarms Taylor's jersey retirement of its solemnity. That, coupled with the manner of Taylor's passing, makes for poor timing from the organization.
Just halfway through his fourth NFL season in 2007, Taylor, whose aggressive style and superb play had made him a fan favorite at Washington, was shot in the leg at his own house after a failed robbery attempt. He was airlifted to Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami where he died the following morning due to blood loss from a severed femoral artery.