The NFL's decision on its national anthem policy solves nothing.

Except for the fact it might work.

A worse outcome would've been if the league had taken the advice of whoever suggested the home team gets to set the rules week-to-week and 15-yard penalties would be enforced if any player on a team failed to comply .

How would the officials have announced that?

"Unsportsmanlike conduct. No. 35. Kneeling during the anthem. Fifteen yards enforced after the watered-down version of what we used to call a kickoff."

Thankfully, the NFL didn't adopt that approach. Instead, though, it simply implemented a policy that really won't change anything.

Unless those who were complaining about anthem protests are naive enough to think the policy did change.

Based on initial reaction from those screaming the loudest, that might have happened.

On Wednesday, the NFL announced anyone on the sidelines before a game must stand at attention during the anthem .

Furthermore, if someone violates the policy, the player doesn't get fined. The team does. Then it can pursue discipline of that player if it sees fit .

The NFL Players Association said it is looking at the decision and will fight any policy it perceives to be a violation of the league's collective bargaining agreement.

The NFLPA went so far as to put quotation marks around the word "policy."

I'll borrow that technique. When I first read the news about the NFL's decision, I thought this "policy" was far from a "solution."

After all, what's the difference between 20 NFL players kneeling during the anthem and 20 of them magically appearing from the tunnel on the sideline before the words " ... of the brave" stop echoing from the loudspeakers?

Won't it be more obvious who is protesting when they come running out of the tunnel to a chorus of boos? Isn't that worse? At least last year, the players were showing unity by locking arms in many cases.

Silly me. I'm employing logic and practicality to this discussion when none of that has been present since Colin Kaepernick first took a knee.

On one hand, you have Kaepernick and his followers moronically conflating the issue of police brutality with the American flag, a symbol that stands for our country's best traits. Not its worst.

On the other, you have a group of people hypocritically shunning freedom of expression and protest, which is something represented by that same symbol they so desperately want to protect.

Quite the wormhole we've fallen into, eh?

So while significant change hasn't been made by this "policy," I'll give the NFL owners credit for one thing: They read the room.

And that room is the Oval Office.

As predicted in this space May 11 , the Trump administration was going to declare victory so long as the visual image of kneeling players went away. Any change in that direction, moderate as it might be, was going to result in President Trump saying he won.

Sure enough, Vice President Mike Pence — he of the grandstanding staged walkout in Indianapolis in October — sent out this tweet after the NFL announced its "policy" change.

#Winning pic.twitter.com/aEJOCmB5lW

— Vice President Mike Pence (@VP) May 23, 2018

The president retweeted it.

Funny. During his now-infamous September rant that touched off this firestorm, I thought Pence's boss called for all the players who refused to stand to be "fired."

I must have missed the part of the news release from the league where it said that's going to happen. Heck, the players themselves might not even get fined.

To my point, however, they declared victory nonetheless.

If we've learned anything since Trump began his presidential campaign, his supporters are fiercely loyal. Usually, whatever he says, goes. And if Trump says he won, then maybe those claiming never to watch an NFL game again will flip one back on if the guy they voted for says, "It's OK now."

So did Trump win? Did his followers win?

Or does the league?

The protesting players sure don't lose. Their sideline absence will now be their statement as opposed to kneeling.

Frankly, if this debate over anthem procedure finally stops, I say no one loses.

Tim Benz is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at tbenz@tribweb.com or via Twitter @TimBenzPGH.

---

Copyright ©2025— Trib Total Media, LLC (TribLIVE.com)

---