[EdnaMode]

The NFL will never recover after the debacle of the last two seasons.

[discostu]

Still the highest rated of the major sports. They’ll adjust to their new normal.

[blam]

I'm done with the NFL, FOREVER!

[fungoking]

Dozens of players were protesting the first two weeks of the season, but no one seemed to care … until Trump’s weekend tweetstorm from his golf club back in September.

False. Trump just acknowledged what was already happening with fans leaving.

[MarvinStinson]

Yes.

[AnotherUnixGeek]

Is This the End of the NFL?

Not the end - but their peak has come and gone. They will continue to decline steadily. The only real hope they had was to replace Roger Goodell with a commissioner capable of recognizing who the NFL's fan base is and trying to win back those fans. Instead, the owners are about to award Goodell a new contract paying him nearly $50 million annually and providing him with a private jet.

Expect Goodell to continue his virtue-signaling to groups who have never watched football and are interested in it solely to score left-wing points. Expect him also to take away home games from NFL fans to play games in London, Mexico City and other foreign cities in an attempt to build up NFL merchandising abroad. Expect continued gimmicks like the idiotic "color rush" uniforms, and cash grabs like the shabby Thursday night games, which are usually sloppy and badly played because players haven't had time to rest and frequently lead to injuries.

All a dismal come-down since the glory days of the NFL's rise during the '70s, '80s and '90s.

[FreedBird]

NFL will have trouble changing such a negative image of the brand.

[Balding_Eagle]

but no one seemed to care … until Trump’s weekend tweet storm from his golf club back in September.

When I got to that part I realized the writer has been so out of touch with real Americans for such a long time that there was no point in reading further.

[marron]

Its done. If you have to force them to stand, they needn’t bother.

[Candor7]

Is This the End of the NFL?>>>

I hope so.

Rather watch college football instead of these race baiting pimps. They are unAmerican.

[Ciaphas Cain]

The current state of the NFL has made the XFL look downright respectable...

[Doche2X2]

I say this is complete BS. Basketball is boring and one-dimensional, where football and baseball are three-dimensional. If the NBA players start protesting, fans will leave them too. People watch sports to get away from “all things political”.

[doorgunner69]

Typical NYC liberal excretory garbage.

POS had to get in his obligatory "It is Trump's Fault" quip to keep the editors happy.

[Kirkwood]

I stopped watching NFL games at the end of the 2014-15 season. I saw where things were heading over the last 10 years as did many others.

[Getready]

Basic problem is that the game is played at such a high physical level and the players are massive and strong that human tissue cannot stand the beating it gets for very long. This includes bone, skin, muscles, ligaments...kidneys, brain...adding political correctness and societal finger wagging and rampant hucksterism and commercialization is making it a very unattractive event.It used to be played by physically active men who liked to push and shove other folks around. Now its calculated and refined to attract moneyletting only.

[Billthedrill]

Done, no, but it is likely way past The End Of The Beginning in Churchill's famous phrasing. A business that is 20% down from peak is still a business but it had better be reacting to it and I see nothing to indicate that the NFL is so.

I could see a few teams going under, the rest collapsing around the large urban television markets. The peripatetic Chargers and Raiders are a case in point - neither is really after butts in seats (which both had) unless those butts are at home in front of the tube getting infused with commercials. Very expensive commercials, whose purchasers know perfectly well where the money is. And won't put it where it isn't.

But a good bit of the hard-won NFL magic was in fans whose season tickets go back generations, who tail-gate with the same people in the same places that their parents did. That's all done now.

And it works the other way, too. I agree with Marron above: if you have to tell them to stand they'll never get it and so you might as well not bother.

[sargon]

Dozens of players were protesting the first two weeks of the season, but no one seemed to care

Boy, there's nothing like peddling a totally false premise to tidy up an inconvenient debate. I had to stop reading at that point, inasmuch as the writer of this piece clearly isn't interested in facing objective reality, but rather in justifying his equivocating propaganda...

[sargon]

Compounding the problem — and the frustrations of NFL owners — has been the ascendancy of the NBA.

Oh, you mean the NBA that wisely and boldly insists that its players stand respectfully for the national anthem—as opposed to the cowardly NFL? You mean the NBA—the professional sports league that actually cares about whether it insults the vast majority of its fans or not?

[Tallguy]

You’ll know it’s ‘over’ if Cleveland or Philadelphia wins the Superbowl. Sign of the apocalypse.

[Alberta's Child]

I don’t agree with the whole article but the author raises a lot of good points. The biggest one is that this whole national anthem debacle has just accelerated a decline that was already in progress.

[V K Lee]

WTP are attempting to wrap our minds around the two different worlds in which we live. When taking a knee, some become well paid stars and some are fired from their job. Although there are two sets of circumstances...what is the difference from an uneducated black youth, praised for kneeling at an inappropriate time and a HS coach who teaches as well? The coach kneeled in prayer, only in prayer of ‘thanks’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fw1UiKLzwko