the Owners. And then we will be off to the races to the Local Court House. Don't think the NFL want to go down that road. The sting from the last Players Law Suit is probably still fresh on their minds.

. . . would stand a court test. Unions have been including disciplinary processes as part of the CBA since the 1920's. Can't believe the NFLPA forgot to do it 80+ years later.

The thing is, the NFL tolerated this behavior until Trump came out and attacked it. The NFL is talking rule changes next week. Clearly their move may be seen as reactionary to Trump or as I would point out seemingly dictated by Trump.

The broad disciplinary power is granted the commissioner, not each individual owner, and the NFL got away with that in the Brady thing because he was "uncooperative". The commissioner has already come out and said the league supports the players' right to express themselves.

There is a big difference between broad discretion on the part of the commissioner in personal conduct issues and an owner deciding to take disciplinary action against the players.

Now a case could be made, i suppose, that as long as the guy still gets paid then making him sit is not really discipline. But that would be pointless for the owner because the only people hurt are the other guys who didn't do anything and the owner who stand to lose revenue if the team doesn't meet expectations.

But an individual owner taking unilateral action like withholding a paycheck for a game would not, IMO, fly legally.

a work rule of this nature needs to be the subject of collective bargaining. Penalties for drug testing and personal behavior were part of the agreement between the NFLPA & the NFL and this would be no different.

Nor do people in quasi public spaces like malls.

this is an employee discipline issue that is covered by the collective bargaining agreement. The existing agreement covers a whole host of potential issues. Is conduct during the National Anthem one of them? Then the question becomes if a silent protest violates any such rules of conduct that exist. Let's see them start to suspend players and then let's see that one played out in both reaction of the remainder of the players and in litigation. I don't think that ends well for the NFL.

Could the NFL itself go after Trump for publicly strong arming them on this or do they just have to suck it up?

Guess it depends on what policies they agreed to when they were hired.

with a clear trail of communication from the White House on what needed to be done and the penalties for not following orders. In this case, it gets murky. Are the NFL owners following their own policy or Trump's unofficial US law as dictated to them in order to prevent federal retaliation?

In either case, the lawyers on DU are pointing out, at no time are employees while on the job guaranteed 1st amendment rights. So trumps interference becomes murky, but undefendable outside of labor court where the NFLPA has a terrible track record.

For standing up for what they believe in, they would be burned at the stake by the republicans. I say go for it.

for doing something repubs believed shouldn't be done, the repubs would be all over the Democratic president.

That's par for the Republican course.

He is on record as claiming to have called owners to force his views on them, and now threatening consequences in the form of taxation for the NFL is they do not follow on his non-binding dictation.

Can you imagine if Obama had done this out in public to any organization? It's like the mob. It would be real shame if something happen to your taxes this year. If I were you, I'd look into the whole kneeling thing. That's racketeering. The act of offering of a dishonest service (a "racket&quot to solve a problem that wouldn't otherwise exist without the enterprise offering the service.

If he had called for someone to be fired, the GOP would say he's wrong. If he had done nothing, the GOP would be begging him to do something.

I suppose they could try to sue....heck, I can try to sue a ham sandwich. But, there's no way they can sue, and win anything.

Bottom line is, the NFL can't violate the the first amendment rights of the players. By "can't", I don't mean they are not allowed to....I mean it's impossible for them to do it.

So no