Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin on Monday criticized left tackle Alejandro Villanueva after the former Army Ranger broke team orders and came out of the locker room for the National Anthem.
The Steelers decided before the game that they wouldn't emerge during the playing of the "Star Spangled Banner," but Villanueva, who served three tours in Afghanistan, appeared on the field with his heart over his hand ahead of the song.
"I was looking for 100 percent participation, we were gonna be respectful of our football team," Tomlin said when reporters asked about Villanueva after Pittsburgh's game against the Bears in Chicago, according to Fox News.
"Many of them felt like something needed to be done," Tomlin said of his players following President Donald Trump's comments last week that any NFL player who kneels during the anthem should be fired. "I asked those guys to discuss it and whatever they discussed that we have 100 percent participation or we do nothing."
"They discussed it for an appropriate length of time and they couldn’t come to an understanding, so they chose to remove themselves from it. They were not going to be disrespectful in the anthem so they chose not to participate, but at the same time many of them were not going to accept the words of the president."
Villanueva's actions confused some of his teammates.
"Some guys wanted to take a knee, guys wanted to stand," quarterback Ben Roethlisberger said. "We said whatever we do, we need to make sure we're unified as one group because that's what we're about, and that's what this should be about is staying together as one unit and one group and one brotherhood, things like that."
Added linebacker James Harrison: "We thought we were all in attention with the same agreement, obviously. But, I guess we weren't."
Cam Heyward said, "we support our guy Al."
"He feels he had to do it. This guy served our country, and we thank him for it," he told ESPN.
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