Washington Commanders defensive tackle Jonathan Allen said Jack Del Rio’s remarks about the Capitol riot are not the “distraction” head coach Ron Rivera billed them as, when he slapped the defensive coordinator with a $100,000 fine.
Allen got into hot water on social media for a since-deleted tweet, where he said that Adolf Hitler would be one of the three people he would have dinner within a Twitter Q&A session earlier this year.
“He’s a military genius and I love military tactics, but, honestly, I would want to pick his brain as to why he did what he did. I’m also assuming that the people I’ve chosen have to answer all my questions honestly,” Allen explained at the time. He apologized for failing to “properly” express himself in a follow-up post.
Early I tweeted something that probably hurt people and I apologize about what I said. I didn’t express properly what I was trying to say and I realize it was dumb!
— Jonathan Allen (@jonallen93_) February 9, 2022
“I got blasted on Twitter for not – for whatever reason,” he told reporters. “I don’t give a d–n. I really don’t. Anybody outside of this team is so unimportant to me. It means nothing what you say to me or what the media says to me.”
At Tuesday’s mandatory minicamp, Allen said that he doesn’t care about Del Rio’s assertion that Jan. 6 was a “dust-up” compared to the damage caused by the rioting of 2020.
“I could care less what people think on Twitter because Twitter is not a real space. It’s a space that people hop behind the keyboards and say whatever they want to say. I could give a rat’s a– what people say on Twitter,” he continued.
Del Rio was fined $100,000 by Rivera, who revealed the penalty wasn’t because he “exercised his right to free speech, but because of the “distraction” it caused the Commanders.
“This is about the impact that was made on our football team, the distraction it has become,” Rivera said on Tuesday. “It’s a very serious question and topic, but at the end of the day, it did impact us.”
From Ron Rivera's opening statement about Jack Del Rio today before the start of minicamp: pic.twitter.com/aF8uYXW8ic
— Nicki Jhabvala (@NickiJhabvala) June 14, 2022
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