Former NFL kicker reveals why he's backing Trump and how he's trying to help turn a key swing state red

Former NFL kicker and “NFL on CBS” broadcaster Jay Feely has endorsed former President Donald Trump in the upcoming election. 

Feely’s endorsement is one of many Trump has received from the sports community, also earning support from Hulk Hogan, Dana White and Brett Favre. He opened up about why he is putting his support behind the former president during an interview on OuKick’s “Don’t @ Me with Dan Dakich.” 

“If you look at Donald Trump and you do it objectively, and you just look at his three or four years in office, really three years prior COVID, and you look at any objective measure compared to four years of the Biden-Harris administration, and you talk about the things that matter to people at home, you talk about the economy, you talk about safety, you talk about shelter, their home, the border, the economy, the things that matter to the people at home, by every objective measure Donald Trump did a better job than the Biden-Harris administration.” 

Feely grew up in Florida, but he and his wife currently live in Phoenix, where he first lived when he played for the Arizona Cardinals from 2010-2013. Feely has five children: Lexi and Delmonte, who are each married; Jace, who is also a kicker and plays at University of Colorado under Deion Sanders; and Abby and Olivia, who are in high school.

Feely believes that people in his state have a chance to flip Arizona back to voting Republican in the upcoming presidential election after Trump lost the state in 2020 to President Biden. However, he has a message to fellow Republicans in the state ahead of November. 

“There’s over 200,000 registered Republicans in Arizona that didn’t vote in the last presidential election … If half of those people vote … just half the registered Republicans in Arizona, [Trump] wins the state of Arizona! It holds true in each of those swing states as well. So people who are registered Republicans, they just need to get out and vote for Donald Trump. I don’t understand to me, how you wouldn’t because the two parties have never been further apart,” Feely said. 

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Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump speaks at the U.S.-Mexico border on Aug. 22, 2024 south of Sierra Vista, Arizona. (Photo by Rebecca Noble/Getty Images)

“The ideas and what they want to do with our country are so diametrically opposed to each other, that I don’t understand that are like ‘well I don’t like Donald Trump so I don’t think I’m going to vote for him,’ … to me, I don’t understand that. You vote for policy.” 

A Fox News election survey published on Aug. 28 shows that Vice President Kamala Harris currently leads the former president in Arizona by less than one point. In the Arizona Senate race, Democrat Ruben Gallego leads Republican Kari Lake by 56%-41%.

Trump won the state in 2016 by 3.5 points. Arizona had previously been won by a Republican in 15 of the last 16 presidential elections dating back to 1952, only losing it once in that span, in 1996. 

Jay Feely of the Arizona Cardinals kicks an extra point against the Tennessee Titans at LP Field on Dec. 15, 2013 in Nashville, Tennessee. (Wesley Hitt/Getty Images)

However, even more than election outcomes, Feely is hoping for a cultural change in American politics. 

“I think we should be able to talk about politics and who we like without people casting stones, without saying ‘oh were going to cancel somebody,’” Feely said. “If you’re liberal and you believe in a certain politician, you should be able to talk about that, express your beliefs. If you like Trump, you should be able to express your beliefs.

“Hopefully we can get back to that someday.”

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