NFL owners, please don’t penalize players for kneeling during the national anthem. That’s a laughably terrible idea

The NFL is determined to fix the public relations problem it ran into when Colin Kaepernick began a human rights protest in 2016, no matter how dumb the solution.

One idea discussed at the league’s annual owners meeting this week was the possibility of 15-yard penalties for players who kneel during the national anthem:

Kaepernick created a firestorm when he kneeled during the playing of the national anthem before games during the 2016 season. Two years later, the movement has mostly died down.

That’s mostly because the NFL iced out Kaepernick, and appears to be doing the same with Eric Reid, another leader of Kaepernick’s human rights push.

At this point, the NFL is pretty much in the clear. The few players still protesting have done so with little spotlight, and President Donald Trump’s anti-NFL tirade died down after September. The owners don’t need to fix anything. They can just shut up and let the fear of getting blackballed keep players quiet.

But the NFL is determined to “solve” this issue anyway, and owners have discussed it at every league meeting for nearly two years.

Their idea of assessing penalties ultimately didn’t come to be. Instead, the NFL decided to force all players who choose to come out of the locker room to “show proper respect” during the national anthem.

A lot of NFL owners didn’t see any point in poking the bees nest and it was probably just a few pushing the conversation. Via Judy Battista of NFL.com:

While some owners — most prominently Jerry Jones of the Dallas Cowboys and Robert McNair of the Houston Texans — have made it clear they want all players to stand during the national anthem, others are supportive of the players’ right to protest, and still others are somewhere in between, reluctant to order players to stand but concerned about the fallout if the protests resume.

At least one owner believes the league is hesitant to create a sweeping rule of any kind because the controversy had quieted down, and there seems little good to be gained from provoking either the players or the president with an edict.

The arrived solution will receive plenty of pushback from those who don’t want players’ voices muted. It won’t stir up the shitstorm that 15-yard penalties would have.

So let’s all just take a second to point and laugh at whoever was dumb enough to think 15-yard penalties were a good idea. What would’ve happened if there was kneeling players on both sides? Off-setting penalties?

Great plan, guys. Try staying out of your own way for once.