Why would they have to change the wording!? They’re employees.
Schefter reported that the league is considering a further revision that would change the words “should stand” to “must stand.” According to ESPN, the decision will likely be made at the league’s annual fall meeting on Oct. 17-18. At least one NFL owner, Jerry Jones, has promised to enforce the non-binding recommendation version of the rule on his Dallas Cowboys and bench protesting players. Jones has explicitly credited the president with having “reminded me about the game ops policy.”
Now it looks like Goodell is going to mandate that the rest of the league follow the Cowboys’ owner example, as well as president Trump’s suggestions.
This move would offer teams license to “fire” any “son of a bitch” who doesn’t stand, lest owners face severe NFL-mandated consequences. It would also allow the league to suspend protesting players. Most importantly, it would suppress players’ attempts to exercise free speech rights in a total cave to Trump, which is perhaps why Goodell is considering it as surreptitiously as possible.
There seemed to have been a conflict in meaning.
Supposedly, there was a ‘policy’, but it was not considered as a ‘rule’. Thus, one could violate the ‘policy’ and be okay, but one could not violate the ‘rule’.
That should clear things up for you. :)
All businesses have rules/standards in written form so the employees have no excuse for not knowing them and the business has legal standing for having made the rules clear - these days, I’d wager most go over them during an in-brief and get a signature that the employees has been briefed and received a copy.