San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
League-killer Trump now has NFL in his crosshairs
This might wind up as the top item on Donald Trump’s sports legacy:
Destroyed two professional football leagues.
He’s halfway there, and the second half is a work in progress.
The first half: Bringing the United States Football League (1983-85) to its knees, then to its grave. Sports historians generally agree that Trump, a team owner in the USFL, killed the league by spearheading a tragic and unnecessary head-on collision with the NFL.
Killing the NFL will be a bigger challenge, but there’s no quit in No. 45.
Players protesting during the national anthem is already a white-hot issue, six weeks before the season opens. Why? Because one guy continIt’s ues to fan the flames. Trump recently demanded that NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell suspend SOB players one game for firstoffense protesting and an entire season for a second offense.
League owners, desperate to please Mr. Unpleasable, passed a rule calling for fines for on-field protests, but allowing players to stay in the locker room. That rule is now on hold while the owners and players union negotiate. Meanwhile, Cowboys owner and law-unto-himself Jerry Jones says his players cannot hide in the locker room. They will stand at attention or take a hike. Eagles safety Malcolm Jenkins called Jones a “bully.” Giants co-owner Steve Tisch said his players will not be punished for protesting.
super-impressive how Trump has created a war out of whole cloth. Fortunately, neither side has nuclear arms.
There will be no happy ending. The owners and players both realize what they have to lose, and what they need to protect, and they’ll work hard to find a compromise, even if they have to get Jones out of the room by sending him out for Papa John’s pizza.
Doesn’t matter what the owners and players decide. No agreement will satisfy Trump. He will not rest until the owners suspend protesters, and nothing guarantees a protest like a bully trying to strip away the American right to peaceful protest.
It won’t be easy to kill the NFL, but never underestimate No. 45.