You can’t say the N.F.L. wasn’t warned to stay away from President Trump – by one of its own owners, no less.
Yet time and again, the N.F.L. has been cowed by a president willing to use his bully pulpit to win political points and exact a measure of revenge on a league that rejected his efforts to buy a team.
The latest admonishment came Monday night when the president disinvited the Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles from visiting the White House less than 24 hours before they were supposed to arrive. Some players had said they would not attend, unhappy with how the president had criticized them for protesting during the playing of the national anthem.