NEW YORK — The NFL’s owners meeting taking place Tuesday in Manhattan was supposed to be about standing—or not standing—for the National Anthem. That’s why the sidewalks in front of the NFL’s midtown offices were packed with reporters all morning, and it’s why satellite trucks were parallel parked in front of the Conrad Hotel in Lower Manhattan before the sun rose.
And then, a funny thing happened: neither the morning meeting between a group of owners and players, nor the NFL’s fall meeting to follow was about the anthem at all. Instead, the league and the players tried to move past that.