The D Jax Hitler/Farrakhan story is old news at this point, and the Birds receiver was “penalized for conduct detrimental to the team” as written in a statement from dating back July 10th. 

We never got to hear directly from Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie, who is Jewish, and was, ironically, getting set to release an Adolf Hitler documentary when all of this DeSean nonsense was going on.

Lurie spoke to reporters on Sunday and was asked directly about the antisemitic Instagram posts, saying this:

Well, I thought the social media posts were disgusting and appalling. I don’t think anybody can take it any other way. You’re talking about a leader of a genocide, and it doesn’t matter what it was a genocide of. Any leader of a genocide is one of the worst individuals and a member of a group of individuals that we’ve seen both in our lifetime and in history.

I’ve known DeSean for a long time. Obviously, we all have. He has, I think, really understood the ramifications of that appalling post. So far, everything that we’ve asked him to do to both educate himself and to learn and take action, he’s done completely. So, I would hope that would continue.

I also think that in life, you have to understand fully where a person is coming from. I listened. I listened. It doesn’t take away the hurt. It doesn’t take away the words. But I think that with DeSean, he’s doing the right things, and that has to continue. That’s a daily event, and that’s where that’s at.

That’s a very fair and reasonable response. Jeffrey Lurie always offers these contemplative answers, like you know that he’s given real thought to a topic and pondered it over time. He’s not just speaking off the cuff, and Eagles fans should appreciate that. Imagine being stuck with Jerry Jones or Daniel Snyder or somebody like Jerry Richardson.

Lurie was also asked about the lack of fans in the stands this season, and whether it was fair for some teams to have supporters while others do not. Here’s is initial answer, with a follow-up question in between:


Initially there’s not going to be fans at our games. We have been trying very, very hard to come up with solutions that are safe and innovative in time for the beginning of the season, and we’ve had a lot of really creative and constructive conversations with the state and the city, and that continues on a daily and weekly basis. We are hopeful there’s going to be real ways of having significant fans in our stadium pretty soon. Maybe not for September but after that, and we’re looking at innovative ways of testing, with rapid testing, with point-of-care testing, with home testing. There’s a lot of ways to kind of approach this, and we’ve been incredibly proactive working with companies around the planet to see what they’re up to and whether we can implement testing procedures that would allow the public — because the first thing is we love our fans. We know we’ve got a big home field advantage. We even have an away field advantage in places, as you know, like Washington, Los Angeles, Miami.

It’s frustrating, but at the same time, I’ve got to say, we as a team, [head coach] Doug [Pederson] leading the way, really embrace — we’re out to win every game. Yes, maybe there’s an advantage for a team to have 10,000, 20,000 fans, but we’re not going to let that stop us. We embrace the situation.

Do we really want to prevent those 20,000 fans in wherever it is to be unable to watch their team play because we’re not able to have fans on the East Coast? I don’t think so. Fans are the backbone of the sport. I really believe that — I wouldn’t want to sit here and tell you that we’re going to stop those fans in Arizona or wherever it is from attending if it’s safe there just because we think there’s some advantage. I’d rather have them enjoy our sport.

I know that’s different than Sean (McDermott’s viewpoint), but just as a philosophy here, whatever the pandemic brings, whatever the ramifications are, let’s embrace it completely and try to win every single football game and go full force ahead.

Q. If you don’t have any fans, do you have a ballpark figure of what that financial impact would be to the Eagles? Have you had to lay off any staff? (Les Bowen)

JEFFREY LURIE: No, we’ve made a point of not laying off anybody. That’s been a very, very important point for me, and I hope it’s never necessary.

Of course, there’s significant economic impact, but honestly, what’s the unemployment rate? It was up to 22 percent the other day? I don’t go there, honestly. We’re in a sport that is unbelievably attractive, thriving. The television business will rebound. I would rather worry about everybody else and right now not worry about us. Obviously, there’s an impact.

He also politely declined to talk about the Washington situation, and explained that he didn’t think it was his “role to comment on another franchise,” explaining that he doesn’t feel like the Eagles should ever place themselves above another team.

Lurie also talked about social justice and a slew of other topics, which Mike Kaye did a nice job of recapping at NJ.com.