There are no winners in all of this. Sports and football are considered "all-American" games that people go to for entertainment. They go there as sports fans and no one cares whether you like Pelosi or think Trump is a Dump. We are sports fans and the football games were a place we could all still go to and just be AMERICANS in unity loving and hating our teams! For the most part, you could even go to an opposing stadium rooting for the visitors with impunity. It was expected.
Enter Roger Goodell. The NFL has been taking steps back for years that has hurt the business, such as inconsistent penalties. Used to be you almost had to kill someone to get a 15 yard penalty, now they fly through the air like feathers! Often a person is hardly touched, has NO EFFECT on the outcome of the game and was committed to the act, in the air, shoved or whatever and could not help what they did and they still get a 15 yard penalty! But rules are rules, right?
THAT'S THE PROBLEM. One guy gets his career ended for little provocation while another guy beats his wife unconscious and drags her limp body away and Roger has to be forced into taking action? This whole mess is HIS doing.
As already pointed out, there are rules governing these protests. Had Goodell imposed a fine a year or two ago when Kapernick started this crap, suspended him 2 games with a $150,000 penalty, that would have been the end to all of this right there and then. Players are representatives of the NFL on and off the field and such behavior is disallowed and offends many fans. Had this been giving the finger to Muslims, you can bet ol' Roger would have jumped right on it!
As a businessman turned president, Trump is quite right that disrespecting our flag is an outrage, especially being tolerated by a huge American business making billions of dollars! It doesn't matter now if Trump should have said it or nor------ he said it. In any business I know, if you are out there breaking company policy and offending customers, your ass is out of there! Whatever effect and direction it goes now, you can blame Roger Goodell. Attendance is already down 10%.
Maybe Trump should have stepped in there and taken over the NFL like Obama took over the auto industry and fired Goodell to put someone in his place. I can't imagine that hardly a person would have complained.