AP

Football players are conditioned to hearing offensive things said about them by opposing fans.

Hearing it from a Presidential candidate was another thing, though Lions safety Isa Abdul-Quddus said Donald Trump’s suggestion that the United States stop Muslim immigration was not necessarily a surprise to him.

“That’s the scary part,” Abdul-Quddus said, via Josh Katzenstein of the Detroit News. “I’m just hoping that either he can change his mindset to be a bit more open-minded, or people just realize we can’t have this ignorance in office.”

A practicing Muslim, Abdul-Quddus said he believes that the percentage of Americans who believe his religion is “evil” is small, and not reflected by Trump’s statements this week.

“It was one of them things that I kind of look at the person before I look at the comment,” Abdul-Quddus said. “Because Trump says a lot of things for shock value to like get people to hear him and listen to him and stuff and just to put his face in public.

“So, I don’t really feel much disrespect when he said that because he already said he wanted to label us. He wanted to have every [Muslim] have an ID and everything, so I just kind of chalk it up as a guy that’s pretty ignorant.”

Lions running back Ameer Abdullah is also Muslim, and remembered experiencing bigotry both as an African American and for practicing Islam while growing up in Alabama.

Neither player had heard any negative remarks in Detroit in recent weeks, though Abdullah said it’s unavoidable that some people will say, and agree with remarks like Trump’s.

“All I do is encourage people to educate themselves before taking a stance, before just listening to someone, before making a judgment or decision on how you should treat a person or talk to a person,” Abdullah said. “You can’t control everyone. All you can do is pray for them and hope that one day they’ll realize that everyone’s just people. You’ve got to love everyone; you’ve got to respect everyone.”

That’s a reasonable expectation, regardless of one’s team, religion or political affiliation.