Paint fades, prayer endures in the NFL
Last Tuesday evening, my wife and I settled in for our annual fall ritual: the premiere of “Hard Knocks.” Some couples watch sitcoms. We bond over football. When Liev Schreiber’s voice kicks in, summer is slipping away, and the beer fridge is filling up.
We’ve watched for years, but this season felt different. The cameras didn’t linger on helmets crashing or coaches barking. Instead, they caught quieter moments: a player brushing off sweat, another flipping open a devotional. The message wasn’t painted in the end zone. It was lived out on the field.
End-zone paint doesn’t move people. Faith lived out in the open does.
That stands in sharp contrast to the NFL’s other big announcement: the return of slogans painted in end zones — “End Racism,” “It Takes All of Us,” and other socially conscious slogans. The league insists they matter. The results? Unclear. A stenciled phrase doesn’t change lives. A lived-out faith does.
Consider New York Jets quarterback Justin Fields. He recently admitted, “I’m low-key addicted to getting in my Bible.” He credits that daily habit for keeping him grounded when the noise grows loud.
In Houston, Coach DeMeco Ryans has helped make Bible studies a regular feature for the Texans. Nearly 40 players, coaches, and staff now attend. Quarterback C.J. Stroud thanks “my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ” during interviews. NBC cut that phrase from a broadcast last season, but it hasn’t stopped him from saying it again.
“Hard Knocks” has become the best proof yet. In the first episode, backup cornerback Christian Benford prayed over an injured rookie, his words audible as trainers worked: “Heavenly Father, please give him strength. ... As we’re weak, bless everything we do. ... In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.”
HBO aired the prayer uncut. No sound bite, no irony — just a moment of faith in full view of teammates and millions of fans.
Episode two showed Damar Hamlin praying, thanking God for “focus, fellowship, brotherhood.” His devotional book sat in his hands, battered and beloved. Its frayed edges testified louder than any press release.
It’s impossible not to recall Tim Tebow. A decade ago, he was mocked for praying on the field. “Tebowing” became a late-night punchline. But Tebow’s courage made public faith in football possible. Today, players pray without irony — and with far less ridicule.
RELATED: The culture war isn’t a distraction — it’s the main front
The league points to its Inspire Change program, which has directed more than $460 million to nonprofits. Good. But the slogans? They’re background noise. As the Babylon Bee joked, “NFL Hoping 3rd Year of ‘End Racism’ Painted in End Zone Will Do the Trick.” The gag works because it highlights the gulf between gestures and genuine transformation.
The real transformation is happening elsewhere: in chapels, prayer huddles, and well-worn Bibles. These acts don’t just polish the league’s image. They shape the men who play the game — building character, humility, and unity in a way a slogan never could.
Sitting on the couch with my wife, I felt the difference. End-zone paint doesn’t move people. Faith lived out in the open does.
Painted slogans fade. Prayer changes hearts. If the NFL wants to inspire change, it should keep showing the moments that can’t be scripted — players living out their faith with quiet acts of devotion, one prayer at a time, and far more enduring than any PR campaign.
‘The era of blackmail’: Has the NFL been forced to be gay?
While major corporations like Apple have shocked the world by refraining from changing their entire brands to rainbow colors during Pride Month, the Alphabet Mafia still seems to have the NFL in a chokehold.
Out of the 32 teams, only nine remained silent as we entered June.
However, people like former Cowboys wide receiver Dez Bryant are not keeping silent either.
In a post on X, Bryant reacted to an NFL promo that makes claims like “football is gay,” “football is lesbian,” and “football is transgender.”
“These are wild statements to make.. excuse my silliness,” Bryant wrote, adding, “I’m going to proudly tell my boys football is none of these things. I have nothing against Gays but this is far from right.”
BlazeTV host Jason Whitlock believes he knows why — despite the increase in voices speaking out against the NFL’s obsession with LGBTQ issues — the league still refuses to back down from throwing its own Pride parade.
“We’re living in the era and the age of blackmail, and maybe we’ve always lived in the era and age of blackmail, but now everyone, and even institutions, are being blackmailed,” Whitlock explains.
“The NFL has been blackmailed by the concussion controversy. The manufactured concussion controversy has Roger Goodell and the National Football League and their ownership group on their knees,” he continues.
“The mainstream legacy media drove this concussion narrative and focused all this attention on head injuries in the National Football League as a way of pressuring the NFL, which is the leader of all American sports, which is the tastemaker for all of American sports,” he adds.
Whitlock believes that this is how the NFL was pressured to “adopt all the woke leftist Marxist agenda and messaging.”
“How can we get the NFL on board with Black Lives Matter? How can we get the NFL on board with the LGBTQIA+ silent P Alphabet Mafia?” Whitlock mimics. “We keep distorting and focusing on concussions in the media, and then we offer them, ‘Hey, we’ll back off the concussion conversation. We know we’ve created and manufactured this whole deal. We’ll back off of it if you’ll hop on board with the BLM LGBTQIA+ silent P Alphabet Mafia.’”
“And that’s what has happened,” he adds.
Want more from Jason Whitlock?
To enjoy more fearless conversations at the crossroads of culture, faith, sports, and comedy with Jason Whitlock, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.
Bill Belichick’s fortune ‘sucked dry’ by 24-year-old girlfriend
Former NFL head coach Bill Belichick is all over the news once again, but this time it's not for a Super Bowl win. Rather, it’s because Belichicks’s 24-year-old girlfriend appeared controlling in an interview with CBS News — which the pair are now trying to downplay.
“I agreed to speak with CBS Sunday morning to promote my new book, ‘The Art of Winning; Lessons from My Life in Football.’ Prior to this interview, I clearly communicated with my publicist at Simon and Schuster that any promotional interviews I participated in would agree to focus solely on the contents of the book,” Belichick said in a statement.
“Unfortunately, that expectation was not honored during the interview. I was surprised when unrelated topics were introduced,” he continued. “After this occurred several times, Jordon, with whom I share both a personal and professional relationship, stepped in to reiterate that point to help refocus the discussion.”
“She was not deflecting any specific question or topic but simply doing her job to ensure the interview stayed on track. Some of the clips make it appear as though we were avoiding the question of how we met, but we have been open about the fact that Jordon and I met on a flight to Palm Beach in 2021,” he added.
Belichick went on to say the clips had been “selectively edited” to “suggest a false narrative that Jordon was attempting to control the conversation.”
Jason Whitlock of “Fearless” believes that Belichick really did agree to a conversation about his book, but CBS saw a more lucrative opportunity with Belichick’s “sugar baby there.”
However, he doesn’t believe Belichick’s decision to date the 24-year-old is a wise one.
“I look at Bill Belichick’s lack of wisdom, and it’s amazing,” Whitlock says, noting that a recent New York Post article details Hudson’s $8 million real estate portfolio that she put together since meeting Belichick.
“She just started buying property in 2023 and getting loans for property, and this is all spelled out in the New York Post. And Bill Belichick saying they met in 2021. My math is right — that’s four years ago, and that makes her, if my math is correct, 20 at that time,” he continues.
“Bill Belichick would have been 69, and he met a 20-year-old on a plane, and by 2023 she started acquiring real estate property,” he adds.
Basically, Whitlock believes Belichick has fallen for Hudson’s scheme.
“I don’t know if Jordon Hudson is an escort, a pro. I do know she’s a young woman that is taking advantage of a 73-year-old man who’s in a full-blown life crisis because of his failure with dealing with the aftermath of Tom Brady leaving the New England Patriots,” Whitlock says.
“This man is incredibly insecure, and this woman is taking advantage of it,” he adds.
Want more from Jason Whitlock?
To enjoy more fearless conversations at the crossroads of culture, faith, sports, and comedy with Jason Whitlock, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.
Why The NFL Shouldn’t Ban The ‘Brotherly Shove’
Ryan Clark blames RACISM for Shedeur Sanders falling in NFL draft
Colorado’s Shedeur Sanders continues to fall in first-round projections for the 2025 NFL Draft — and some people, like Ryan Clark, are claiming that it’s due to racism.
“We all know that they plant these certain reports or they say these certain things, and you do hear the word ‘arrogant.’ Why is he arrogant? Because he won’t walk into the meeting and bend the knee? Or he won’t sit in the meeting and question himself or his abilities or his knowledge and experience in the game?” Clark ranted on ESPN’s “First Take.”
“I’ve had conversations with Shedeur Sanders,” he continued. “And he can do all that. We all know that it’s not just about him being Deion Sanders' son. It’s about the bravado he carries. It’s about the fact that he looks a certain way. It is about the fact that the color of his skin sometimes, at that position, can be questioned.”
“And I believe Shedeur Sanders is going to have to deal with that until he gets on the field,” he added.
Jason Whitlock of “Fearless” is not surprised.
“He has a skin color that can be questioned at that position, according to Ryan Clark,” Whitlock says. “I mean, Patrick Mahomes, Jalen Hurts just played in the Super Bowl. Jalen Hurts just won a Super Bowl. Patrick Mahomes has won three. I believe Lamar Jackson’s won two or three MVP trophies.”
“What are we talking about, Ryan?” he asks. “These guys, they go a few seconds, a few weeks, ‘Oh I don’t have any traction, let me play the race card.’”
“‘I just got off the phone and Deion’s frustrated Shedeur is not going to go in the first two or three picks of the draft. It must be racism.’ ‘Oh, there’s questions about Shedeur’s arrogance, oh, that must be racism,’” Whitlock mocks.
“People had all kinds of questions about Johnny Manziel’s attitude and arrogance and whether or not he was self-aware enough. Those questions are all perfectly fine. He’s Johnny Manziel. He’s white,” he adds.
Want more from Jason Whitlock?
To enjoy more fearless conversations at the crossroads of culture, faith, sports, and comedy with Jason Whitlock, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.
The NFL’s Streaming Scheme Makes Watching Football Insufferable And Nearly Impossible
Washington Redskins logo might soon make a comeback
Lawmakers and the National Football League have reportedly discussed resurrecting the canceled logo of the team formerly known as the Washington Redskins.
Montana Sen. Steve Daines (R), a firm believer that the American Indian logo "is a depiction of pride and strength," recently told Fox News' "America Reports" that there are "good-faith negotiations" under way leaning toward the league and the Commanders "allow[ing] this logo to be used again."
Leftists embarrassed by American history and grudging of Western greatness committed to a campaign of deracination and iconoclasm in the summer of 2020, digging up graves, toppling statues, renaming animals, switching out historical place names, melting down busts, and knocking out church windows.
While the Biden administration and Democratic lawmakers led the way, this was not just a governmental effort. Corporations similarly rushed to break with tradition and sacrifice iconic brands to the woke zeitgeist. The NFL was no exception.
Activist investors leaned on major sponsors to threaten to terminate their relationships with the Washington Redskins unless the team, owned by Daniel Snyder, dropped its name. FedEx and other woke sponsors obliged them.
Despite vowing "never" to change the name, Synder ultimately caved, and the team announced in July 2020, "We will be retiring the Redskins name and logo."
In the woke frenzy, critics and eager iconoclasts appear to have overlooked the history of the logo.
Walter "Blackie" Wetzel, an American Indian who served as Blackfeet tribal chairman and president of the National Congress of American Indians, designed the logo. Don Wetzel Jr., Blackie's son, told the Guardian that his father called the logo "his Most Beautiful Chief."
'It is not a caricature.'
The circled image of the feathered chief was reportedly a composite of portraits of a Blackfeet chief named Two Guns White Calf.
During a hearing earlier this year, Sen. Daines, ranking member of the Senate National Parks subcommittee, explained the state significance of the logo and its history: "In 1971 Blackie met with George Herbert Allen, who was then the head coach and general manager of the Washington Redskins. Knowing that Coach Allen admired and supported Native Americans, Blackie Wetzel encouraged him to replace the team’s 'R' logo with something that represented Indian Country."
Cowboy State Daily reported that public opinion polls taken between 2016 and 2020 consistently showed that a majority of American Indians — between 50% and 90% — indicated they were not offended by the Redskins name.
"Blackie brought Coach Allen designs based off prominent Native American figures including Blackfeet Chief Two Guns White Calf," continued Daines. "On behalf of the team, Coach Allen adopted the now iconic logo that’s placed prominently on this beautiful helmet that I received from former players. I am proud to display it today. Make no mistake, this logo was inspired and envisioned by Wetzel as a tribute to Native Americans. It is not a caricature. It is a depiction of pride and strength. Of courage and honor."
Daines made clear that he doesn't want the name restored but that the "failure to properly honor the pride and history embodied by the iconic logo must be made right by both the new team ownership and the NFL. Doing so would honor the Blackfeet tribe, my constituents, in Montana."
An opportunity to pressure the the league and the team came in the form of a piece of legislation that would permit the Washington Commanders to use the federally owned land whereon the derelict Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium now stands as the site for a new stadium.
Daines spent months blocking the bill in the Senate, insisting upon the restoration of the logo. On Nov. 19, he changed his tune and voted the bill out of committee.
The Montana senator explained to "America Reports" last week why he ultimately supported the bill, signaling optimism that the team might embrace its old logo.
'I think Senator Daines was misled.'
"We were calling out leaders in case of, really, woke gone wrong. The irony is that they were canceling Native American culture as the DEI movement went way too far," said Daines.
"We have good discussions with the NFL and with the Commanders. There's good-faith negotiations going forward that's going to allow this logo to be used again — perhaps revenues going to a foundation that could help Native Americans in sports and so forth," said the Montana senator. "We're making good progress, and based on the good-faith negotiations, I made a decision to support this bill yesterday in the committee."
Daines indicated in a statement that he voted in favor of the bill's passage out of committee "with the condition that the team follows through on the commitments made to the family."
"I urge the team to continue their dialogue and reach a conclusion that honors their past, honors Don Wetzel's vision to use the logo to help Indian Country and honors the will of the Blackfeet Tribe to restore the logo to place of honor and prominence," added the senator.
The Native American Guardians Association reportedly wanted Daines to see through his blockade of the bill until the team officially restored the logo.
NAGA president Tony Henson told the Cowboy State Daily, "Honestly, we were disappointed that Daines did let the legislation go through. I think Senator Daines was misled about the Redskins language."
Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!
NFL Fines Player For MAGA Hat After Paying Kaepernick Millions Over His Kneeling Stunt
Fans At Acrisure Stadium Chant ‘U-S-A’ As Trump Attends Jets-Steelers Game In Pittsburgh
A Trump super fan was chased by four men until they ushered her off the field
Get the Conservative Review delivered right to your inbox.
We’ll keep you informed with top stories for conservatives who want to become informed decision makers.
Today's top stories