In the NFL’s most feckless moments of ownership in the 2017 season — with players kneeling in protest and the league office struggling to deal with the albatross of Donald Trump — the presidential bully pulpit reigned supreme.
Whether it was stoking his base in rallies, engineering a vice presidential walkout during a game or sending cannon shots through social media, Trump became a master at demonstrating a formidable reality: He knew how to throw a punch that NFL team owners and executives were incapable of responding to.
On Friday, that may have changed.
Time will tell if the NFL’s actions can keep up with Roger Goodell’s words, but there is little arguing that the commissioner just put the league into a place it steadfastly avoided for much of the past three years.