Mike Huckabee says the National Football League's wimpy inability to demand that all of its highly-paid grid stars stand for the National Anthem is affecting its TV ratings as disgusted Americans tune out.

"After a month of players following 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick's lead in refusing to stand for the National Anthem — and the NFL Commissioner's mealy-mouthed quasi-endorsement of players imposing their grievance politics onto the game — the NFL's TV ratings are dropping like Target's stock price," the former Arkansas governor writes on his Facebook page.

"The last few Sunday and Monday night games posted the NFL's lowest TV ratings in seven years. Players, team owners and the NFL need to figure out fast that while players may have a First Amendment right to badmouth the U.S. and disrespect the flag and the National Anthem, fans also have a right to turn off their TVs and not buy the tickets and merchandise that support their lavish salaries," Huckabee wrote.

Last week's Sunday Night Football match drew in its lowest ratings in seven years, and a game between the Green Bay Packers and Minnesota Vikings scored a 13.7/22 in Nielsen's metered market ratings — down 18 percent from last year's ratings, according to Deadline.com

Huckabee believes one of the NFL's problems is that it has bought into the "progressive" mantra to politicize everything."

"[The progressives have] been especially successful in the world of pro sports, where ESPN now resembles MSNBC with jock straps and the most-honored sports hero of last year was Caitlyn Jenner," Huckabee writes.

"The powers-that-be in sports think they have to knuckle under to SJW [social justice warrior] blackmail because offending people is bad for business.

"But they've overlooked one important point: the people who are crying that they're offended aren't their target audience, and the target audience for pro sports is offended by players who parade their political causes onto the field like a marching band at halftime."

Huckabee, who unsuccessfully ran for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination, says sports officials are trying "desperately" to claim the drop has nothing to do with players "showing a total lack of gratitude for the nation that let them become fabulously wealthy for being able to play a game well."

Don't believe it, Huckabee says.

"You know, just like Target's sales drop was due to general malaise in the retail industry and not because they knuckled under to the left and invited guys into the women's fitting rooms. It's like the Super Bowl of Denying Reality."

According to a new Yahoo Sports/YouGov survey, at least 44 percent of NFL fans say they would actually stop watching the games if the National Anthem protests continue.

Kaepernick has been staging a silent boycott of "The Star-Spangled Banner" during 49ers games this season, pointedly sitting or kneeling during renditions of the song rather than standing to protest against racism and police brutality against African Americans.

The overall result:

Oppose Kaepernick's protest: 47 percent;

Support Kaepernick's protest: 32 percent;

Neutral or declining to offer an opinion: 21 percent

The survey also found 65 percent of Americans over the age of 55 oppose the protest.