In October 2017, the owners of the 32 NFL teams, along with Commissioner Roger Goodell, various league executives, and even a few players, scrambled the jets for an emergency meeting at NFL headquarters in New York. The focus of the meeting was not CTE, or the league’s minority-hiring practices, or any of the other existential threats plaguing football at the time. It was the threat posed by President Donald Trump.

“The problem we have is we have a president who will use [the NFL] as fodder to do his mission that I don’t feel is in the best interests of America,” said Patriots owner (and past and future Trump supporter) Robert Kraft. “It’s divisive and it’s horrible.” Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie said, “We’ve got to be careful not to be baited by Trump … We have to find a way to not be di

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