If the players refuse to cooperate with the league, this gets very messy indeed. Then the league (and the teams) must enact punishment - no punishment, no policy. If the league and teams fail to sanction players in violation, the fans continue to write them off and they stay away. And if they do punish the players, the s**t on the inside of the NFL really hits the fan.
The league and the teams let this get out of hand when they could have axed it in the bud with Kaepernick, the moment he started his movement. Now they are going to pay the price, one way or the other. Franchise values start dropping and the uber-rich owners are going to feel pain they aren’t used to feeling.
I don’t know what’s worse - these spoiled idiot jocks going on about “oppression” or having to listen to Rush blather on about it for hours every day.
Since they’re clearly too stupid to know which way the wind is blowing, they’ll fully get what they deserve when / if their stupid sport disappears.
“The league and the teams let this get out of hand when they could have axed it in the bud with Kaepernick, “
To quote Magic Johnson: “I don’t know anything about that, but you can axe me anything else you want!”
The only hope the NFL has at this point is to let the word out to the agents that contracts are going to be smaller starting immediately. That affects the agents' bottom line as well as the players. The agents can say "listen, this is going to hurt you ... YOU ... financially. You may not even get a starting deal. Are you sure you want to keep doing this? If so, perhaps you need a new agent." Then we'll see how it goes.
Ah silly me, I forgot Rodger Goodell is in charge! Hah hah hah! He'll just write a sternly worded letter and then be ignored. Oh wait, he already wrote the letter? Okay, on to the ignoring part...