First and foremost politics shouldn't be in sports, we go to sports as an escape of the reality of our life and society, in a sports games, it's the last place I want politics to be discussed.
Second, the NFL is a business and I think that It is not that this was a political decision about wanting players to stand up, but this was a business decision since the NFL was losing viewership last year at the time of the protest and took this as a measured.
Having said this, I don't discard the fact that the owners have their own political agendas to attend to, most of them are associated with the Republican party and have made inflammatory declarations of some sort or another, like Houston Texans owner who one time referred to players as 'innmates'
Thank you for posting this, you make good remarks.