The NFL is back 鈥� and strong
It seems like it was only yesterday that Donald Trump declared war on many pro football players.
In September of 2017, he appeared at one of his (pep) rallies in Alabama, and he asked, 鈥淲ouldn鈥檛 you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, 鈥楪et that son of a b**** off the field right now. Out! He蘑菇视频 fired. He蘑菇视频 fired.'鈥�
Trump蘑菇视频 adoring masses, always willing to fall in rank, fanned out across the internet, and on TV and radio talk shows and announced they鈥檇 had enough of those 鈥渉igh-paid, social warriors.鈥�
They would no longer watch NFL football because they didn鈥檛 want to see people do things they don鈥檛 like.
They hadn鈥檛 minded watching people beat each other senseless for all of those years. But when some fellows rested on one knee, it caused them to get some conniptions.
Trump didn鈥檛 understand that the NFL is, for many Americans, another form of religion that also happens to convene on Sundays.
His flared-nosed pronouncements about pro football players, seemingly only had a limited, but certainly not a long-term, impact.
Ex-Vice President Pence appeared at an NFL game in October of 2017. But he left before the kick-off 鈥� supposedly because several players took a knee. That was met with a public yawn outside of the Trump-a-sphere.
Nobody seemed to care that much about Mike Pence蘑菇视频 stunt.
That, as they say, was then. This, as they also say, is now.
The NFL is back, baby!
Players are mostly free to express their feelings about social justice (under an agreement with NFL owners that allows them to wear messages on the backs of their helmets).
Many of those Trump-loving people who pounded their chests about finding better things to do on Sundays than to watch NFL players, appear to have found their way back to their TV sets.
The TV ratings for the first weekend of the NFL season are impressive.
The entire first week average for all NFL games was 17.4 million viewers 鈥� up 7% from last season.
The Monday Night Football game between the Baltimore Colts and the Las Vegas Raiders reached an eight-year high in TV viewership.
But the cynic in me (a large portion of my personality, my wife tells me) thinks that many of those people who claimed they are jettisoning the NFL from their lives never watched it anyway.
They were simply engaged in the kinds of over-the-top 鈥減rotests鈥� that were loud, but phony 鈥� and the direct opposite of the sincere pre-game protests that had been engaged in by those NFL athletes.
Now isn鈥檛 that ironic?
That蘑菇视频 the kind of thing that leads otherwise logical people to do illogical things.
Think, January 6.
Mr. Trump, though, doesn鈥檛 care.
He has a gift.
One that he slyly uses to inflame people to personify his outrage on cue.
After he declared that by taking a knee, those NFL players were engaging in some unAmerican activity 鈥� he gladly stepped back and watched the fallout.
He also knew that many of the loudest cries for sanctions against those players, and for the abandonment of the nation蘑菇视频 Sunday football worship, were coming from people who don鈥檛 know a football from a golf ball.
That was OK with Trump.
The same could be said about his infernal 鈥淏ig Lie,鈥� which ultimately led to the events of January 6.
He loudly and repeatedly claimed that he had been cheated in the 2020 presidential election, to the extent that people decided to take up arms to support him.
Some of those people who joined him on that day had no intention of storming the Capitol building when they got there.
But they joined.
Donald Trump had played puppet master 鈥� while they had been his dutiful puppets.
Meanwhile, the NFL has easily survived his fake outrage.
It appears to be returning to its pre-pandemic form.
Unfortunately, though, the nation is still struggling to overcome the residue of his brutal attempt to undermine democracy 鈥� before and after January 6.
Edward A. Owens is a multi-Emmy Award winner, former reporter, and anchor for Entertainment Tonight, and 40-year TV news and newspaper veteran. E-mail him at freedoms@bellatlantic.net.