Detroit Lions linebacker Jalen Reeves-Maybin has received some gut-wrenching hate mail from fans who disagree with his decision to protest during the national anthem.
The 22-year-old rookie has not been welcomed to professional football warmly by some fans, though Reeves-Maybin says he's not letting them ruin his first year in the league.
"People are saying, like, 'I hope you get CTE,'" Reeves-Maybin told Kyle Meinke of MLive.com. "Or, 'I hope you can't play with your kids when you get done playing,' Stuff like that. But, yeah. It doesn't bother me."
The fourth-round pick also confirmed that, like Washington Redskins receiver Terrelle Pryor, he has been the target of racial slurs.
Related: Terrelle Pryor says he flipped off fan because of racist verbal attacks
"Oh yeah, definitely," said Reeves-Maybin. "Yeah. All day. But, I mean, I can handle it."
Lions owner Martha Ford had asked that all her team's players stand for the national anthem last week, though Reeves-Maybin and fellow linebacker Steve Longa felt that continuing to kneel was the correct course of action.
"I feel like the right thing for me to do is kneel," Reeves-Maybin said. "I really don't like the state of social inequalities and justices that go on here.
"I didn't want it to be about what President Trump said, and I felt like at the time, the week when you saw all the demonstrations, I feel like it more so made it about that and that's not the idea of what it should have been."
