Congressman, former NFL-er Owens says he's done with league until 'America divider' Goodell is fired

Former NFL star and freshman Utah GOP Rep. Burgess Owens says the NFL has gotten too political and he will continue to boycott the National Football League until Commissioner Roger Goodell is fired.

Owens played for the New York Jets in the 1970's and helped bring the Los Angeles Raiders to their championship Super Bowl win in 1984. Owens, who now represents Utah's fourth Congressional district, has since become a sharp critic of the modern-day NFL.

He told "Just the News AM" on Monday that Goodell is taking away the elements of sports that united fans and instead making the NFL game political.

Owens said politics in football is "something I just don't have a tolerance for this point. ... I'm one of those guys who has decided I'm done with the NFL for a while."

He said he didn't even watch the Super Bowl on Sunday and suggested to show host Carrie Sheffield that the league has allows too much political activism. 



The league, for example, allows teams to stay in their locker room during the national anthem to call attention to police brutality, particularly against black Americans.

"Use another venue, or use another time. What we don't do is we don't attack those things that do bring us together," Owens said about the communion of sports in America. "If we're teaching our kids to do nothing but look at the worst of ourselves, then we don't move forward. ... For any of us to look back on the worst things we've ever done, focus on that and only think about that, we will never move forward. We'll never risk-take, we'll never think it will be better."

In a recent Twitter post Owens referred to Goodell as "America divider."