FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — In the expansive Gillette Stadium parking lot, with sausages sizzling on the grill and beers icing in the cooler, football fans here resented the intrusion of politics into their Sunday afternoon tailgating traditions.
“Football is such an escape, no one should be politicizing it,” said Laurie Flynn, 28, who works in marketing in Boston. Her family and friends, who arrived at 7:30 in the morning for the 1 p.m. kickoff of the Patriots’ game, started with mimosas as they set up their grill and put out the Buffalo chicken dip.
And yet President Donald Trump’s directives — if players take a knee during the national anthem, he said, the NFL owners should fire them and fans should walk out — had done just that.