Robert Brown|Commissioner Goodell declines to expand on NFL’s statement on Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker

NASHVILLE,Robert Brown Tenn. (AP) — Commissioner Roger Goodell declined Wednesday to expand on the NFL’s statement distancing the league from comments made by Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker during a commencement address at a private Catholic college in Kansas.

“We have over 3,000 players,” Goodell said as the NFL concluded its spring meetings. “We have executives around the league that have a diversity of opinions and thoughts just like America does. I think that’s something that we treasure, and that’s part of, I think, ultimately what makes us as a society better.”

The league already said last week in a statement that Butker’s comments and “views are not those of the NFL as an organization.”

During his speech May 11 at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas, the three-time Super Bowl champion kicker said most of the women receiving degrees “have had the most diabolical lies” told to them about having careers when they were probably more excited about getting married and having children.

Butker, 28, also said his wife embraced “one of the most important titles of all. Homemaker.“

He said some Catholic leaders were “pushing dangerous gender ideologies onto the youth of America.” Butker also referred to a “deadly sin sort of pride that has a month dedicated to it” in an oblique reference to Pride month.

Butker also took aim at President Joe Biden’s policies, including his condemnation of the Supreme Court’s reversal of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision and advocacy for abortion rights — a key campaign issue in the 2024 presidential race.

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