RUSH: Jerry Jones, the owner of the Dallas Cowboys, said that any player who disrespects the flag will not play for the Dallas Cowboys. Snerdley, you’re a Cowboys fan. You agree with that? You do? Steve Ross, who owns the Miami Dolphins, said if you come out, you are standing. Nobody is kneeling. Three players stayed in the locker room…

Now, why would Jerry Jones, the owner of the Dallas Cowboys, say that any player who disrespects the flag will not play for the Cowboys? I have a theory. I think Jerry Jones wants to save his business. You know, while nobody’s looking, the NFL is in a world of hurt. They are no longer, according to polling data, the country’s national pastime. They are no longer the country’s most favorite sport. They’re not even in second place.

This has been a monumental decline, and it began before the current player protest began. It began with the sports Drive-Bys focusing on concussions and making a movie about it and changing the way people watch the game. People watch the NFL now almost in fear that somebody’s gonna die, get killed. Somebody’s gonna get so severely maimed. They watch this and they’re nervous watching the game and some people are thinking, you know, maybe they shouldn’t. Now you add these protests of the country on top of it, and it’s more than the NFL can withstand.

Now, the players union has been found to have been donating to liberal causes, and liberal activist groups have been found to be supporting the players association, George Soros and others. Unbeknownst to anybody, the players union has been supporting big-time leftist causes. That’s now coming out. That’s not gonna fly, because that’s not what people think and want when it comes to professional sports. And players and players union officials are now saying, “We’re not protesting the flag. We’re not protesting the country.”

Yes, you are. I don’t care what you think you’re doing. Then what are you doing? How many of you players know exactly why you’re kneeling anyway? Is it because you want to remain loyal to Kaepernick who you think’s being sandbagged here by the league? Well, if you’re in unison with Kaepernick, you gotta go back and listen to what Kaepernick said was the reason he’s doing all this. And he’s doing it precisely because of the inequality and the bias and the discrimination in this country and the fact that the cops kill people of color and get away with it.

If you are in solidarity with Kaepernick, then that’s what’s you’re doing. You can’t say you’re not protesting the flag when you take a knee during the anthem. You can’t say you’re not protesting the anthem. That’s exactly what you’re seen as doing. Why else do it?

But what you’re really doing, what these players are really doing is attacking the very business that has not mistreated them, the very business that has made them wealthy and gives them opportunity like they would not have anywhere else, and they are summarily attacking and damaging that business. And Jerry Jones isn’t gonna put up with it. He’s going to do what he can to save his business.

Now, a lot of these players are mad at Trump. They think Trump has attacked them, they think Trump’s attacked their rights. But that’s not what is going on. Donald Trump is not the problem. Donald Trump actually was at the head of the line trying to warn the NFL that its business is in trouble if they don’t get their arms around this and stop it.

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RUSH: Just got a flash that the ratings Sunday Night Football were down again last night. The word “slipped” is in the headline. May not be a major drop. Anyway, we have a brief time-out here at the top. We’re gonna come back, be racing through things, folks, so just buckle up and hang on.