Penalties for Kneeling Being Considered

That’s for league personnel, i.e. league employees, not team employees.

So, if a ref takes a knee, it’s up to the commissioner to penalize him.

 

Does this strengthen Kaepernick's collusion case, at least incrementally?

 

Unforced error by the NFL. Draws more attention to an issue that they don't want to focus on.

Ridiculous that the narrative was hijacked from being about protesting police brutality to "disrespecting" the troops. Complete crap.

Let players protest. Then play the game. This just inflames the issue.

Ratings weren't down because of protests. Ratings were down because it was a shitty season and the league is totally over exposed. It's no longer "event" with so many games on several days of the week. And ratings were down because of a splintered TV market and cord cutting.

Want better ratings? Produce a better product.

 

And they may even be limited when you're at home

Teacher fired after calling students losers on Facebook has license suspended

 

Great. Goodell and the owners just made themselves Trump's bitches.
If, say, an NFL player criticizes Trump off the field or online and Orange Shitgibbon demands he be suspended or fired, think any owner or the commissioner will stand up to him? And these are probably the same people who would tell Obama to go @#$% himself if he ever tried to tell them what to do.

 

While @Azrael is confusing a number of different issues,* one could make an arguably non-frivilous claim along these lines: to the extent a court were to dismiss a wrongful discharge action, it is arguably (impermissible) state action which comes within the scope of the First Amendment—even if the original termination (or punishment) was by a private employer. This arguably follows from Shelley v Kramer, which held that the 14th Amendment bars a court from enforcing racially restrictive (but private) housing covenants. While the 14th Amendment does not apply to private parties, the court enforcement of such a contract would be state action that falls within its ambit. I mean I sort of doubt that’d be a winner—although I’m far from an expert—but it’s certainly not an entirely off-the-wall theory.**


* Yes, government employees have free speech rights (to a limited extend), but that has nothing to do with what’s going on here. And yes some public places are considered public forums where there may be limits on the extent to which you can stop someone from speaking there, but that doesn’t mean your employer couldn’t terminate you from speaking there or anywhere else.
** I’d support that by citing to some law review articles discussing this—which based on a quick Google search appear to exist—but I’m not sure that’d be all that convincing e to show it wasn’t off the wall.

 

Scared NFL Makes Epic Mistake with Anthem Policy

 

Just to clarify, the sidebar about a public employee's rights was just that, a sidebar, raised in answer to CD Boogie.

My question about the NFL and coercion was the extent to which these events are occurring in publicly funded, semi-public places.

 

Now listen ... this kind of informed discussion ... that’s just not welcome around here.

 

Enjoy it while it lasts because as some here would tell us, my ISP will likely block me from accessing SJ.com unless Congress overturns the net neutrality repeal...

 

Caving to the urges of morons, as genuinely patriotic as they are genuinely Christian.