Abdul Carter Said He and Jackson Dart Talked Like Men. Why Not Do That Before You Tweet? Get up to $200 off Square hardware when you sign up at square.com/go/WINGO #squarepod #sponsored By now you have probably seen it. Jackson Dart — the New York Giants starting quarterback — introduced President Trump at a fundraiser. His teammate Abdul Carter reposted the tweet with a comment that essentially said what are we doing here. The post went viral. 55 million views. Every NFL show in the country had something to say about it. And then Abdul Carter posted again. Said he and Jackson Dart talked like men. Said everyone could keep their narratives. Trey has one question. Why not do that before you hit send? This is not a political story. Trey is not here to tell you whether Jackson Dart was right to introduce the president or whether Abdul Carter was right to respond the way he did. That is not the conversation. The conversation is about what happens inside an NFL locker room — and what the rules actually are. Here is what most people covering this story do not know. There are only two things that actually tear apart an NFL locker room. Two. Everything else — different backgrounds, different beliefs, different politics, different religions, different ways of seeing the world — all of that gets worked out because it has to. You are trying to win football games together. You put the other stuff aside. The two things you do not touch are somebody else’s money and somebody else’s family. That is it. Those are the lines. Cross either one of those and you have a real problem that winning might not even be able to fix. Michael Strahan and Tiki Barber never fully patched things up after Tiki crossed the money line. Drew Brees and Malcolm Jenkins had to have a genuine come to Jesus moment after the kneeling comments went public. These things leave marks. Jackson Dart did not cross either line. He introduced the president at a fundraiser. That is his right. That is his business. In a locker room that stays exactly where it belongs — in the category of things that are not your business because it is not your money and not your family. But here is where it got complicated. It went public. And the moment it went public it stopped being Jackson Dart’s private business and became everyone’s business — including 55 million people on social media who all had a take. And now the Giants locker room — which has 53 guys with 53 different backgrounds and 53 different sets of beliefs — has to manage something that never needed to leave the building in the first place. Abdul Carter said they talked like men and squashed it. Good. That is the right outcome. But Trey’s point is simple — if you can talk like men after, you can talk like men before. One conversation before the tweet and none of this is a story. None of it. The 55 million views do not happen. The hot takes do not happen. The Giants do not have to spend any energy managing a situation that has nothing to do with winning football games. And winning is what matters. Trey has said it for 30 years covering this sport. Winning is the ultimate deodorant in an NFL locker room. You will put up with anything — any personality, any opinion, any difference — as long as the team is winning. The moment the winning stops every little thing that you looked the other way about starts to become a problem. The Giants need to win. If they win this goes away completely. If they lose it will come back. Jackson Dart is the quarterback of the New York Giants. That means every action he takes is going to be scrutinized by every one of his 52 teammates. Some of them will agree with him. Some of them will not. That is the job. With great power comes great responsibility. He appears to have handled the aftermath well. The lesson going forward is that the leader of an NFL locker room has to think about how every public action lands inside that building — not because he is not allowed to have his own life and his own beliefs — but because perception is reality in a locker room and his job is to keep 53 guys pointed in the same direction. Talk first. Tweet second. That is the lesson. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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