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Jacksonville Jaguars owner Shad Khan said President Donald Trump's anger at NFL players' protests during the national anthem isn't about the protests themselves. He told USA Today that for President Trump, it's "a very personal issue with him." Khan said Trump's anger is really about his failed bid in 2014 to buy the Buffalo Bills.

Seattle Seahawks defensive end Michael Bennett compared Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones’s decision to sit players who do not stand for the national anthem to the Dred Scott Supreme Court decision. “It reminded me of the Dred Scott case: You’re property, so you don’t have the ability to be a person first,” Bennett told reporters Wednesday. “I think that in this generation, I think that sends the wrong message to young kids and young people all across the world that your employer doesn’t see you as a human being, they see you as a piece of property, and if that’s...

Seattle Seahawks defensive lineman Michael Bennett said that before NFL players and the league can move forward with their conversations about working together on social causes, the issue of Colin Kaepernick's unemployment must be addressed. "I think the first step to even being able to even have a conversation is making sure that Colin Kaepernick gets an opportunity to play in the NFL," Bennett said Wednesday. "I think before we even negotiate anything about whether we sit, whether we stand [during the national anthem], it should be a negotiation about opening up the doors for Colin Kaepernick and giving him...

Fresh off his mid-season meetings with NFL owners and players in New York, Roger Goodell told the assembled press that they had talked and talked and talked about “social justice” stuff and the national anthem and decided that….wait for it….NOTHING WILL CHANGE. Goodell said that while he and the owners would “prefer” all players to stand for the national anthem and honor the country that has made them all so fabulously wealthy, he and his feckless group of owners will make no rules changes to require them to do so. Thus, the NFL will continue to fine players who don’t...

The attorneys for Aaron Hernandez have refiled their case against the NFL and its former helmet manufacturer, saying the New England Patriots player suffered a 'horrendous existence.' An 86-page civil complaint was filed on Monday at the Norfolk Superior Court in Dedham, Massachusetts. It claimed that the NFL and Riddell - based in Illinois - were liable for the extensive head trauma Hernandez suffered which ultimately lead to him having CTE.

Over two short press appearances, the NFL commish could not stop repeating the same two wordsWithout a doubt this is already an NFL season Roger Goodell can't wait to drop kick into distant memory. As players' political activism increasingly encroaches onto the playing field, ratings are getting blitzed. Over the first six weeks, NFL ratings are down 7.5 percent as compared to last season, per Nielsen. They're down 18.7 percent from the 2015 season. (Commenting last year on the decline, Goodell punted, blaming the presidential election for America's fading interest.) Faced with such awful stats, it's incontrovertible that if Goodell...

Like many Americans, I find it distressing to see multi-millionaire athletes kneeling during the playing of our national anthem before professional football games. In my lifetime, football has been a big part of our image as Americans. In my working-class Cleveland, Ohio family, Sunday football was always a big event. One of my cousins was married to Lenny Dawson who would become a Hall of Fame quarterback. It was a rare Sunday during football season when we weren’t gathered around our TV or radio for the Cleveland Browns or the Kansas City Chiefs game (both if possible). As we watched...

Just weeks ago, members of the Jacksonville Jaguars made international news by protesting the U.S. national anthem on foreign soil. Ahead of a game in London, Jaguars kneeled — and owner Shad Khan supported their protest by standing with the team during the anthem.In the interim, an attempt to walk it back: as a mea culpa letter from Jaguars President Mark Lamping to a city of Jacksonville official made clear on Oct. 6. The team, wrote Lamping, “was remiss in not fully comprehending the effect of the national anthem demonstration on foreign soil has had on the men and women...

It’s safe to say, that when NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell wrote a memo to the league informing them it was time to “move past the anthem controversy.” Most people thought he meant moving past it by ending the protests, and, as a result, ending the controversy. However, a disturbing nugget of information from today’s meeting suggests that Goodell might have meant something else entirely. ESPN’s Sal Paolantonio caught up with Goodell after the four-hour meeting with the owners and player representatives. Paolantonio asked Goodell if the league had asked the players to commit to standing for the anthem. Goodell’s response,...

Brian McClure was sitting in the quarterbacks meeting room, running through the Bills’ game plan on Wednesday, October 14, 1987— exactly 30 years ago this week. It was nearing the end of the NFL players’ strike, but in four days McClure, Buffalo’s replacement QB, was set to make his first professional start, against the Giants. Then a coach came bursting through the doors breathless, with an update. Lawrence Taylor, the Lawrence Taylor, had just crossed the picket line. Yes, the coach said after the inevitable follow-up question. Taylor would be suiting up on Sunday. In that moment, two words came...

Through the first six weeks of the NFL season, total viewership of games is down 7.5 percent, compared with the first six weeks of 2016. An average of 15 million people watched games for the first six weeks this year, compared with 16.2 million people through Week 6 last season, according to metrics from Nielsen

"I am going to predict right now that we will have a smoking gun," Geragos said on CNN. "There are people who are not going to get into an arbitration proceeding and they are not going to lie. They are not going to lie. They are going to tell the truth and they're going to say what happened. They were told no, you're not going to hire him."

NFL television ratings continue a downward trend in the early part of the 2017 season. CBS' NFL ratings are down 17 percent year over year compared to 2016. Fox's NFL ratings are down seven percent for the first five weeks of the season year over year. CBS' broadcast of the Pittsburgh Steelers-Kansas City Chiefs, which went to 86% of the country, drew a 14.0 rating. The 14.0 is the lowest for the Week 6 national window since 2006 (13.5), per Sports Business Daily. Later in the day, NBC pulled a 10.9 for the winless Giants against the Broncos on Sunday...

Responding to progressive propagandist Trevor Noah, host of “The Daily Show,” who has been hosting his show from Chicago, where he has been bashing conservatives for highlighting the longtime Democrat-controlled city’s astronomical murder rate, despite having some of the strictest gun control laws in the country, former Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clark appeared on FOX Business to discuss not only Chicago but also the anti-American NFL protests against the American flag and the National Anthem. Sheriff Clarke accused Trevor Noah of trying to downplay Chicago’s murder rate because it sheds a negative light on the Democrat Party and that it’s...

National Football League (NFL) owners, executives, players and union leaders announced Tuesday that they’re making plans to “utilize our platform” to effectuate “social change.” The NFL and NFL Players Association released a joint statement after a meeting Monday that discussed, among other things, players’ National Anthem protests at games. The statement declares their joint plans to use the NFL’s platform to change society and “address inequalities in our communities.” […] On Monday, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell used his platform to promote Senate legislation. Goodell and Seattle Seahawks receiver Doug Baldwin issued a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck...

Mandatory Title: NFL LIVE THREAD Week 7 Thursday, Oct 19, 2017 Kansas City at Oakland 8:25 pm CBS Oakland Coliseum Sunday, Oct 22, 2017 Arizona at L.A. Rams 1:00 pm FOX Twickenham Stadium Baltimore at Minnesota 1:00 pm CBS U.S. Bank Stadium Carolina at Chicago 1:00 pm FOX Soldier Field Jacksonville at Indianapolis 1:00 pm CBS Lucas Oil Stadium New Orleans at Green Bay 1:00 p FOX Lambeau Field N.Y. Jets at Miami 1:00 pm FOX Hard Rock Stadium Tampa Bay at Buffalo 1:00 pm FOX New Era Field Tennessee at Cleveland 1:00 pm CBS FirstEnergy Stadium Dallas at San...

CBS’ and Fox’s projected earnings will suffer a hit, according to two separate reports by Credit Suisse, and falling NFL ratings will continue to impact network earnings so long as they are on a downward trend. Why are earnings suffering? CBS’ crashing NFL ratings will directly impact company earnings, Omar Sheikh, Credit Suisse analyst, said. Special: 3 foods to avoid in 2017 “We expect third-quarter network advertising to decline 3 percent (previously +1 percent), driven by soft ratings for both the summer schedule and for the start of the NFL season,” Sheikh said, according to CNBC. “With only one of...

FULL TITLE: Monday Night Football ratings hit season low as NFL owners meet in New York to address ongoing controversy surrounding players protesting during the national anthem The Tennessee Titans won their Week 6 game against the Indianapolis Colts on Monday, but the real losers may be ESPN and the NFL, which suffered through the lowest-rated 'Monday Night Football' game of the season. MNF, which is broadcast by ESPN, had been losing viewers throughout the season, but Monday’s 6.1 rating in metered markets was its lowest of the 2017 season, according toDeadline.com. (In other words: 6.1 percent of households in...

I took data from SportsMediaWatch.com to look at television viewership at NFL games 2014-2017. Most of the data in news reports compares same day games from last year to this year, (ie; MNF from one year to the next). I decided to look at the aggregate of each week's data over the last four seasons to get an idea of trends.So what you are seeing is the TOTAL viewers for Nationally Televised games, each week, Year-Over-Year(From Thursday Night - Monday Night). Below is the data for Weeks 1 - 6* of seasons 2014 through 2017. *Note - week 6 (2017)...

The National Football League seeks to double down on politics despite the bad hand of anthem kneelers resulting in fans becoming boo-birds. The league recently formally endorsed the bipartisan Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act.