Actually I’d lay it at the feet of Tagliabue, he’s the one that was commish of the NFL when the NBA codified anthem behavior in the rulebook. He had the opportunity to fix it first, he was even a player friendly commish and could have gotten it through without anybody even getting upset. Tags should have called up Stern and asked why he was doing it, but he was too busy enjoying Pax Tagliabue and not bothering to do much of anything about player behavior. Which led to the mess Goodell inherited (he took over a league with players getting arrested every couple of days in the off season) and he’s just had bigger fish. Of course the whole things was pointless and basically dead. 10 players in week one, that would have been the peak, then somebody had to call them SOBs.
the players union is out of control and no one can bring back that runaway train. NFL’s next move is probably pay per view playoffs and teams all over the world to make up the revenue