Trump came for the sports world last week, and the sports world—thankfully—let him have it. It all started when Steph Curry voted "no" on the Warriors taking the NBA champions' customary visit to the White House. The Snowflake-in-Chief, with a big boo-boo on his ego, decided to rescind the invitation out of spite—you know, the old "You can't quit, you're fired!" move. If you haven't heard by now, the NBA went after him with LeBron leading the charge ("u bum," "Going to White House was a great honor until you showed up!"), backed up by everyone from Westbrook to MJ to Popovich. What to do when an entire sports league is coming after you? If you're the unpresident, you double down and go after another. Last Friday, the Fat Fascist stirred things up even more when he called anyone protesting during the anthem a "son of a bitch," saying that they should all be fired. This from the man-boy who claimed there were some "very fine people" among the white supremacists in Charlottesville last month. But hey, what's driving a car through a crowd—killing a fellow American—and beating several black men compared to kneeling quietly during the National Anthem? What followed was a weekend of demonstration that, while expected, went beyond the limits of what many thought would happen. Teams around the league made their own statements during the anthem. The Ravens and Jaguars linked arms in London, sending a strong message overseas. The Seahawks held a four-hour meeting before the game to decide wha their response would be. The Steelers didn't come onto the field at all—save for Army veteran Alejandro Villanueva. Two of the anthem singers themselves, Rico Lavelle and Meghan Linsey, knelt after completing their performance. Every single team that played this weekend saw some portion of their squad joining the protest. That was the expected part. What many didn't see coming was the response from the owners. The Mango Menace has a long history of trying to break into football. He tried with the USFL, and ended up torpedoing the league after forcing them to compete directly with the NFL. He tried to buy the Buffalo Bills in 2014 and failed then too—a slight that might explain his current disdain for the league. All the Dotard has to show for his attempts at joining the football world are friendships with some of the owners, though they are quite lucrative. If you're a fan of the Jets, Patriots, Bucs, Rams, Cowboys, Browns, Jags, Texans, or the Washington Professional Football Team, congratulations: your ownership donated to the Trump campaign! Some, like Robert Kraft of the Pats and the Cowboys' Jerry Jones, are among Agent Orange's best chums—Kraft gave him a Super Bowl ring during the team's White House visit, for Christ's sake. But that's what made all these responses to the controversy so interesting. Shahid Khan of the Jags stood in solidarity with his team, arms linked, as did Washington's Dan Snyder. Kraft released a statement condoning the words and actions of our failing leader, as did the Browns and Texans. The Rams, Bucs, and Jets ownerships all released statements supporting the players, but did not mention the Oompa-Loompa by name. Jerry Jones, however, put on a show. On Monday Night Football, with the entire nation looking, Jones—who gave $1 million to the Trump campaign and said just last month that players shouldn't be protesting during the anthem—knelt with his team at midfield. It was surprising to be sure, and plenty of people are rightly skeptical over how much of the demonstration was just about optics (here's a pretty good analysis from that point of view). But at the end of the day, it sent a strong message that Trump isn't just weak physically, intellectually, and emotionally—his influence is weak too. Just to be clear: the NFL still has a lot to answer for. With news of Aaron's Hernandez's CTE and guys like Tyreek Hill—who punched his pregnant girlfriend in the stomach—still running around the league, they're going to need more than a weekend of togetherness to stave off the decline of their viewership. However, this was an important moment for the organization, and it was handled about as well as you could have hoped for. Ironically, I think it's Kraft who best summed up the message that American football sent to the world this weekend:
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