This is from the NFL’s 2017 Rulebook; Section 4 Equipment, Uniforms, Player Appearance; Article 8 Personal Messages:

Throughout the period on game-day that a player is visible to the stadium and television audience (including in pregame warm-ups, in the bench area, and during postgame interviews in the locker room or on the field)….

The League will not grant permission for any club or player to wear, display, or otherwise convey messages, through helmet decals, arm bands, jersey patches, or other items affixed to game uniforms or equipment, which relate to political activities or causes, other non-football events, causes or campaigns, or charitable causes or campaigns.

This is the spirit, if not the letter, of the NFL’s pretended attitude toward on-field player political statements like attacking our flag and national anthem.

Plainly, NFL management has no standards it considers important enough to enforce.

At the start of Thursday night’s NFL game, the Bears and Packers players stood for the national anthem with linked arms.  I’m frankly a squish about civilians and hands on hearts during the national anthem; that’s a practice that’s become so ubiquitous, long before the NFL’s current assault on our flag and our national anthem, that the failure to put one’s hand on one’s heart during the anthem has become—almost—OK.  The players all stood, no one kneeled, and that’s good progress.

However, this image presents Randall Cobb, Wide Receiver, standing on Aaron Rodgers’ (No 12) right, showing the way: linked arms and still with his hand on his heart.

The beauty of Cobb’s move is emphasized by the player on his right: linked arms with a Black Power clenched fist—a deprecation of our flag and anthem that only enhances Cobb’s gesture.

The NFL and its players think taking a knee when our flag is displayed and our national anthem is played is appropriate.

Congressman Brian Mast (R, FL) had this on his Facebook page:

The NFL doles out penalties for celebrating a touchdown, but won’t require respect for our flag?

I have taken a knee after jumping out of a helicopter as we looked for the enemy, taken a knee in front of the Soldiers Cross as we mourned a fallen brother and taken a knee in church.

Here’s the image that accompanies his post:

Oh, yeah—I neglected to mention that Congressman Mast lost both legs to an IED while serving as a bomb disposal expert in Afghanistan.  And he’s still standing.

Crap.  If these “players”—to bang my drum—don’t liked some of the things our nation does, they should protest those things, they should argue against our nation’s doing them, they should go out and work actual solutions instead of attacking the symbols of the nation—and through that, the nation itself—that protects their right to do despicable things.

Instead of being a pack of porch dogs, they should get into the game.

H/t to FoxNews insider