When Donald Trump attacks the NFL, the owners cower and capitulate. Their futile policy of appeasement has brought them nothing but embarrassment, with the latest blow coming Monday when Trump abruptly cancelled the Eagles' White House visit. In a statement, Trump falsely suggests Eagles players knelt during the national anthem last season, which is why he says they were disinvited. But the truth is, not a single player on the Eagles protested the "Star-Spangled Banner."
Trump has made at least 3,251 false or misleading claims during his time in the Oval Office, per the Washington Post. The facts don't matter to him. He recognizes that bashing an increasingly small number of black NFL players who protest for racial justice during the anthem is red meat for his aggrieved base. As a result, he is not going to stop doing it. The owners can keep cow-towing, but they'll continue to look feckless.
Their subservience stands in stark contrast to NFL players, who fight back against Trump's transparent propaganda. They look strong, and the owners look weak. It's quite the role reversal for a league that usually features the owners steamrolling the players during every round of negotiations.
It shows that when the billionaire owners are stripped of their inherent power advantage, they've got nothing.
It's easy to stand strong when all of the leverage is on your side. NFL owners will probably always trounce the NFLPA during collective bargaining talks, because the players need the money more than they do. The average NFL career is just 3.3 years long. Players, especially those at the middle or bottom of the roster, don't have lots of time to earn money playing football. That means they will eventually cave. Conviction doesn't pay the bills.
NFL owners have conjured themselves into thinking Trump's incessant Twitter attacks against the league have negatively impacted business. In turn, they are submitting. At the league meetings two weeks ago, the owners admitted Trump's barbs influenced their decision to implement a new policy that says players will now be fined for kneeling during the anthem. If players want to protest, they are now expected to stay in the locker room.
There is no discernible proof that a significant number of NFL fans stopped watching because of the kneeling. For the seventh straight year, "Sunday Night Football" was the highest-rated series on television. NFL games accounted for 37 of the 50 most-watched TV broadcasts of 2017. Yes, ratings were down overall, but live viewership numbers have declined for almost everything. The evidence shows this isn't a Trump problem.
But the owners apparently don't recognize that. So they're taking part in the fool's errand of trying to placate him. It's failed every step of the way. Case in point: less than 24 hours later after the new policy was announced, Trump amped up his rhetoric. Instead of remaining in the locker room, perhaps protesting players should leave the country, he said. Keep in mind, at the end of last season, fewer than 20 players in the entire league were still kneeling or sitting during the anthem. This was a non-issue. It has now been resuscitated.
Early on, the players decided they weren't going to be pawns in Trump's culture war. Hundreds of them knelt after the "sons of bitches" tirade; more than 30 Texans knelt after owner Bob McNair compared them to inmates.
The Eagles are continuing these acts of defiance. Wideout Torrey Smith lambasted Trump Monday night, saying his statement about canceling the event was littered with lies. "It's a cowardly act to cancel the celebration because the majority of the people don't want to see you. To make it about the anthem is foolish," he tweeted.
Reportedly five or fewer players were expected to attend the ceremony. As Smith said, that is almost certainly the real reason it was called off. (Trump was reportedly furious last year when Tom Brady announced he wasn't going to show up, fretting about how it would make him look.)
Eagles players kept up the offensive Tuesday morning, chastising Fox News for falsely implying they protested during the anthem in 2017. The network showed images of players kneeling in prayer before the game without presenting the context. Fox later apologized to the Eagles for the shameful misrepresentation.
The Eagles organization, meanwhile, released a mealy-mouthed statement that didn't address the controversy at all. The team is holding OTAs Tuesday.
Trump is not going to lay off the NFL. He reportedly told Cowboys owner Jerry Jones as much in a phone call. "This is a very winning, strong issue for me," Trump said, per the Wall Street Journal.
The players are fighting back. History will judge them well.
