Five days before the Browns Saturday night preseason tilt against the Buccaneers, twelve Browns players protested the two-minute playing of the national anthem. Fast-forward five days, to yesterday, and zero Browns players protested the national anthem. What do all these numbers add up to?

Don’t mess with Jim Brown, that’s what they add up to.

According to Mary Kay Cabot of the Cleveland Plain-Dealer, Brown addressed the team and told them, “Do not disrespect your country, do not disrespect the flag.”

How the leftist sports media reacts to Brown in coming days, will merit interest. Prior to the recent spate of athlete activism, most in the media regarded Brown as the embodiment of the activist athlete. However, just in the past couple days, Brown proudly highlighted out his American heritage while criticizing the practice of disrespecting the flag and the anthem. He also, in that same interview, pointed out the contradiction of trying to be an athlete and an activist.

Here again, he’s inserted himself into the fray by confronting protesters on the team that he played for. Brown could quite possibly find himself in the same position that the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. is in. Once revered and idolized by nearly all activists, however, when measured against the recent strain of extremely divisive and combative tactics of the modern left, found to be too docile, and not sufficiently “woke,” to complete the struggle.

However, as far as the Cleveland Browns are concerned, they still listen to Jim Brown.