You may disagree with Jim Trotter regarding his opinions. There can be no disagreement that he has true courage.

After being fired by the NFL for daring to question the commissioner – twice – during the Super Bowl press conferences about diversity and inclusion in the NFL Media newsroom (the matter was settled more earlier this month), Trotter accepted a job with Athletics. On Tuesday, he made public his frustrations about the extent to which his column on Nick Bosa’s recent MAGA hat on the field was edited.

“Full disclosure, this is the watered down version of the original column“, Trotter tweeted. “I was not allowed to properly, in my opinion, contextualize the importance and consequences of this moment because, I was told, I would be violating the journalistic standards of the New York Times when it comes to sports and political commentary But that’s a discussion for another day.

THE New York Times tomato/tomahto released a statement to AwfulAnnouncing.com, explaining that the Times has nothing to do with the editorial decisions taken by the sports site it owns: “The New York Times standards played no role in this process. The story followed the normal editing process at Athletics. We do not discuss publicly our editorial decision-making.

Trotter, who clarified that the the sweetening was carried out by Athletics and not the Timespublicly discussed editorial decision-making. People at Athletics might be upset that he did it.

If so, too bad. Let the man speak his mind. He’s a columnist. Let him write his column. What if the column blurs the line between sports commentary and political commentary? Bosa did it first; that’s why the question is relevant.

When athletes choose to make sports political (and they have every right to do so), sports media have an obligation not to evade the issue but to analyze the activity and its ramifications.

What Trotter means is that if the NFL does nothing about the Bosa case, blatant violation of the rules Regarding the posting of political messages, the NFL will have created a double standard regarding Bosa and Colin Kaepernick, who was shunned for making a statement in a manner fully consistent with the rules as written.

In Kaepernick’s case, evidence developed during his collusion grievance showed that the NFL chose to cater to the portion of fans who hated Kaepernick for kneeling during the national anthem and ignored a similar percentage from the fan base that supported him. If the NFL remains silent about Bosa, it will once again bow down to a vocal minority who respond to legitimate dissent with hatred, insults and threats.