A 'rogue' NFL employee helped black players make the 'Black Lives Matter' video

The NFL did a pretty wild about-face this week, with Roger Goodell appearing in a video on Friday that admitted the league was wrong for coming out against its players’ peaceful protests against police violence.

For people who follow the NFL closely, it was a stunning pivot from a league that is known for moving extremely cautiously, especially when it comes to what are viewed as progressive ideas or policies.

What brought about the rapid change? The league undoubtedly felt pressure to act in response to a video that came out last week which featured many black NFL players calling out the league for not issuing a strong enough statement on the protests this week.

And it turns out, someone from the NFL actually helped the players make the video calling out the league. A “rogue” content creator, who directly reached out to Saints receiver Michael Thomas and asked if they could make the video together.

The story was first reported Friday by The Athletic's Jourdan Rodrigue and Lindsay Jones.

Henry Bushnell at Yahoo wrote Saturday how NFL employee Bryndon Minter reached out to Thomas via Instagram direct message, and asked him if he’d consider making a video with him.

From Yahoo, "Within 15 minutes, Thomas wrote back. Twenty-four hours later, he and other prominent black NFL players published a powerful video. Within another 24 hours, tens of millions of people watched it – and it had changed the league’s relationship with social injustice for good."

Minter admits he thought he’d be fired for the act. He told his bosses the plan before the video went up, and while they had a meeting to discuss it, they said he could proceed. Players published the video the next morning