For the better part of Andy Reid’s two-plus decades as an NFL head coach, one of his core philosophies has been to encourage his players to let their personalities show. The belief is that the more authentic players are to their true selves, the happier they’ll be — and the better they’ll play.
During a contentious 2020, that has also meant encouraging an atmosphere where Reid’s players have felt comfortable sharing their feelings about society’s significant events. This is not always given in the NFL, where coaches and team owners are often deathly afraid of “distractions,” and with several studies showing Americans being more deeply divided across racial and socioeconomic lines than ever before there was the potential for locker room divisions along those same lines.