McKaepernism

If the NFL's "flag crisis" is the result of the President's using it as a whipping post to fan (pun intended) his base--and I wrote in the wake of Charlottesville that at the time his standing to invoke patriotism was tenuous--then the entire "backbone" of the "protests" are at least equally fruit of the poisonous tree, the result of a player in decline using intersectionality for PR points after prodding from his "woke" then-new terrorsplainer girlfriend.  (Raised by a middle class family and having absolutely no political conscience prior, where the hell else did he get it?)  

Also, for once, I'll give Roger Goodell credit because he was in an impossible position [a lot of it of his own making, of course, because he's trying to be Bud Selig and he never will], but right now, this was the best the NFL could do (again, because they stepped in it by not doing what the NBA has done for decades).  The fact that no one is happy (the President being less unhappy than most, which is unusual enough) should be one indication that, for now, this was the least bad option. 

"It would be better that they did nothing and kept the status quo"?  The furor did die down as the season went on, and the claims of correlation between viewership decline and the perceived intersectionalization of the league were most likely exaggerated; but after the public layout for ostensibly progressive causes, management had not only the right but the duty to retake control of its product and its presentation.  Argue all you want about the league commodifying patriotism by making deals with the DOD; that just makes them smarter than the other leagues that might not have.  (And the DOD approached them.  Maybe there is something to this "American Football" thing.)

Finally, the "solution" here is actually the simplest one--because the players who might want to protest on company time can do it; it just might be more financially risky.  They are legally free to do so--and free to pay the consequences.  (The few conservatives who’ve defended kneeling and said “you can’t force patriotism” are off the mark: this is about enforcing a workplace policy.  It bears no resemblance to Pledge-in-classroom issues; the NFL is not a public good.)   I suspect that a kneeling player will be fined between 10-50K, and his team(s) will be forced to fork over between 100-250K.  Token pocket-change fines would make this policy completely meaningless; however, don't underestimate the ability of the league to permanently blackball and/or damage the career of a player who gives it a PR shiner, even if it does so selectively.   

(While I've practically advocated that Tom Brady should be made the football equivalent of Barry Bonds because of Deflategate, even Bonds' excommunication didn't occur until after his retirement.  Kaep and Eric Reid will be as perpetually radioactive as Ray Rice because their sins were in public view.  Hard to tell if a ball is slightly deflated unless it's being dribbled.  Hence, the notion that the punishments are disproportionate and/or racially motivated don't hold water.)

The NFL also need not overthink the possibility of sustained mass protest as a reflexive response to the new policy.  First: if the kneeling resumes to any major degree and a new ringleader can be identified--a Kaep will be put in the ass of that player's NFL career.   Second (and this is the other reason Goodell's move is the least bad of all the moves): the "protests", should they occur, might happen early in the season but then will die down as the season goes on and either fines accrue; after Mohammed Abdul-Rauf was fined by the NBA in 1995 and started to then show up for the anthem, he stated that he acquiesced in standing by reexamining his position and finding in Islam that he could do so, indicating that punshined participants will find a similar way to rationalize backtracking.  Moreover, if team dissension starts costing games and/or playoff spots, the protesters will further eat themselves.  If that happens, it might even make the NFL more fun to watch both on and off the field. 

In the meantime, as much as the Trump-base types hare ostensibly unwilling to brook dissension, those rallying around the Kaep because epater le Trumpois have demonstrated as much inflexible fealty to the tenets of hard left intersectionality, as evidenced by Linda Sarsour tying the NFL's deKaepitation to "right wing Zionism", and Marshawn Lynch's Viva Mexico helmet dance.  (Or maybe it was a rally Kaep.)

Call it McKaepernism.