Columnist Jarrett Bell offers his take on the controversial decision.

ATLANTA – Here’s to the first NFL star to raise a fist while on the sideline during the playing of The Star-Spangled Banner at a stadium next season. The NFL dared you.

Sure, owners Wednesday passed what amounts to a Colin Kaepernick Rule requiring players (and other team personnel) who choose to be on the sideline to stand during the anthem.

Any violator subjects his franchise to a fine from Commissioner Roger Goodell’s office, and a double-down threat empowers owners to enact team workplace rules that would compel players to show “respect” for the American flag.

If the NFL thinks this anti-kneeling action is going to squash all possibilities of protests so as to keep the focus on the field and “stick to football,” as Cowboys owner Jerry Jones put it after two days of league meetings, it probably has another thing coming.

“It’s like, ‘Go get in the back of the bus or sit in a dark, quiet room,’ because you’re not allowed to peacefully express yourself during the anthem.” Jeffrey Robinson ACLU deputy legal director

Like President Trump achieved during a rally in Alabama last fall when he urged to “get the son of a (expletive) off the field” as the answer for addressing protests, the NFL has merely added fuel to the fire.

Kaepernick ignited this whole discussion when he took a knee during the 2016 season as a protest of the police brutality and other social injustices inflicted against African Americans. And now the NFL feels a need to set the record straight on what it will or won’t allow during the anthem.

“It is a sad thing … a dark day in American sports,” Jeffrey Robinson, deputy legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union, told USA TODAY. “The thinking that this is somehow taking politics out of football is ridiculous.”

This is a bad look for the NFL wrapped in control and retaliation, with overtones of a racist mentality, to snuff out resistance. The so-called compromise? If players wish not to stand for the anthem, they can stay in the locker room until the song is completed.

“It’s like, ‘ Go get in the back of the bus or sit in a dark, quiet room,’ because you’re not allowed to peacefully express yourself during the anthem,” Robinson said.

The policy might inspire more resistance with some socially conscious players who could view the pushback as evidence of the sacrifice they are making for their cause.

“It’s hard to predict what one individual will do,” Steelers owner Art Rooney II told USA TODAY. “But this provides a little bit more clarity for how we stand on the issue.”

The NFL might think it is establishing clarity, but it is drowning in the gray area. Consider the contrasting responses from Rooney and Jones, when both were asked, separately, whether it is appropriate to ask prospective players about intentions for their conduct during the anthem. Rooney said the Steelers haven’t engaged in such questioning and he wouldn’t expect that to change. Jones believes that’s fair game. “Legally, we can ask that,” Jones told USA TODAY.

In announcing the policy, Goodell stated it passed “unanimously.” But shortly after the meetings concluded, 49ers CEO Jed York revealed his team abstained. Furthermore, he declared the 49ers were consider- ing halting concession sales during the anthem. “I don’t think we should be profiting if we’re going to put this type of attention and focus on the field and on the flag,” York said.

At least he is consistent with his previous messages. It’s striking that other owners who backed protesting players didn’t object.

There apparently are no plans to alter the presence of military salutes. In crafting an anthem policy that punishes dissenters, the NFL is presenting quite the un-American display of patriotism.

The apparent lack of engagement with the NFL Players Association smacks of hypocrisy. The NFL promised last fall not to change its anthem policy without involving the union during the final stages of development, according to the union. Well, here’s yet another way to breach trust between the NFL and the NFLPA.

The NFL didn’t ask for this crisis. Yet as the most popular league in the nation, it has assumed the attention. Kudos to Goodell and Co. for the effort to support the Players Coalition, as its pursuit of social justice initiatives is undeniably noble.

Yet the new anthem policy is like taking two steps back to another time in America.