NEW YORK — NFL team owners are defending their decision to prohibit players from kneeling during the national anthem, claiming they are simply exercising their First Amendment right to deny the First Amendment rights of others.

“Free speech comes in many forms,” explained NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. “The owners of the NFL’s 32 teams are simply exercising their free speech by taking away the free speech of the players who are exercising their free speech.”

Goodell added, “And since in America money also equals free speech, the team owners can afford a whole lot of free speech.”

In lieu of allowing players to kneel during the National Anthem, the NFL has ruled they may exercise their free speech in other designated areas, such as the locker room, the parking lot, or the unemployment line.

Other changes to NFL games in the name of free speech will include encouraging players to “speak freely” about what an excellent job President Trump is doing. Players will be required to take part a mandatory “Patriotic Free Speech Minute”, following the newly-instituted full military parade which will accompany the national anthem at the beginning of every game.

While many NFL players, most notably quarterback Colin Kaepernick, have knelt during the anthem to protest police violence against African Americans, many team owners have insisted this is “the wrong kind of free speech,” said San Francisco 49ers owner John Edward “Jed” York. “The free-est speech is having the freedom to destroy others’ free speech.”

York continued, “And if the NFL players don’t like it, they’re welcome to create their own bigger NFL and destroy our right to destroy their speech.

“That’s the America I want to live in.”