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The firestorm over NFL players disrespecting the national anthem is not over. The NFL Players Association, a union that represents all NFL players, sued the NFL on Tuesday for their adoption of a new anthem policy. The NFLPA filed a grievance challenging new policy that forces all players to stand on the field during the anthem. “The union’s claim is that this new policy, imposed by the NFL’s governing body without consultation with the NFLPA, is inconsistent with the collective bargaining agreement and infringes on player rights,” a press release from the union said.

The NFL's players and owners find themselves trapped in a collapsing pocket of their own creation — and at risk of getting sacked by millions of fans across the country. Two weekends ago, many team owners appeased their players by participating in national anthem demonstrations after President Trump's rather profane demand on Sept. 22 that owners fire any players who kneel. These demonstrations didn't go over well with many NFL fans — millions of whom are white, older, and conservative, and see any demonstration during the national anthem as fundamentally unpatriotic. So last weekend, some teams tried to innovate solutions...

President Trump, in an exclusive interview with "Fox & Friends," said that NFL owners are “afraid” to act against their players protesting the national anthem at games across the country. “The NFL is in a box and they have to do something about it,” Trump told Fox News' Pete Hegseth, in the interview aired Thursday morning. “I think they’re afraid of their players, if you want to know the truth,” Trump said. In the same interview, Trump also touted the newly released Republican tax reform framework, describing the plan as the “largest reduction in terms of dollars in any plan...

The image was striking - several owners of NFL teams locking arms with their players on the sidelines Sunday in a dramatic statement of defiance to a president who ridiculed their sport and condemned players for refusing to stand during the national anthem as a protest against racism. Beyond the appearance of unity, though, is a far different reality: The owners have done little to support players who protest to fight social injustice. A few owners have told their players that kneeling for the anthem is inappropriate. The owners by and large are a white, conservative group of billionaires, several...

Players around the NFL knelt, sat or even refused to come out of the locker room for the national anthem on Sunday in order to protest social inequality. Despite favorable media coverage, mainstream outlets forgot to mention one key factor: how much money those players actually make. Case in point, the seventeen players who protested the anthem before the Jaguars-Ravens game in London have contracts totaling more than $448 million. And that’s just from TWO OF THE TEAMS. More, from The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Robert Donachie: Combing the total value of each players contracts adds up to a whopping...

Brain damage was diagnosed in 87 percent of donated brains of 202 football players, including all but one of 111 brains of National Football League athletes. This new study, published today in the journal JAMA, is the latest linking dangerous head injuries to football, though the authors note that the true risk may be lower than the results suggest. Chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, is the term for brain damage that occurs after repeated blunt impact, like head tackles in football. Previous research has shown that CTE is linked to — among other things — memory loss, depression, and dementia,...

NFL players responded to President Trump's criticisms of players protesting police brutality by taking a knee during the national anthem by kneeling en masse Sunday morning. The opening of the NFL Sunday slate of games took place Sunday morning in London, and many players from both the Baltimore Ravens and the Jacksonville Jaguars took a knee during the playing of "The Star-Spangled Banner."

Tom Brady will sit out the first four games of the upcoming NFL season, but Deflategate hasn’t officially been put to rest quite yet. The New England Patriots quarterback has granted the NFL Players Association permission to continue fighting his four-game suspension, a source told ProFootballTalk’s Mike Florio, even after announcing he is done doing so himself.

The NFL believes that nearly three in 10 former players will develop debilitating brain conditions, and that they will be stricken earlier and twice as often as the general population. The disclosure Friday comes in data the league prepared for its proposed $765 million settlement of thousands of concussion lawsuits. Both the league and players' lawyers estimate that 28 percent of the retirees will develop Alzheimer's disease, moderate dementia or more serious neurological problems. That would represent nearly 6,000 of the 19,000 living former players. Dozens of them could develop Lou Gehrig's or Parkinson's disease.

3/9/2010 - BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan (AFNS) -- Four National Football League players visited Bagram Airfield servicemembers March 5, as part of a USO tour of the U.S. Central Command area of operations. Mario Williams, a defensive end for the Houston Texans; Jason Whitten, a tight end for the Dallas Cowboys; Vernon Davis, a tight end for the San Francisco 49ers and Joe Thomas, an offensive tackle for the Cleveland Browns, were welcomed by the servicemembers. The signed autographs, posed for pictures with the troops and learned about the mission in Afghanistan. The players visited servicemembers on the flightline, at the...