“All team and league personnel on the field shall stand and show respect for the flag and the anthem”: that is how the NFL worded their edict that players who kneel during the national anthem will be fined.

We all know what standing looks like, but what about respect? That’s likely to become a crucial question as NFL players look for new protest tactics that won’t endanger their careers or lead to financial penalties for their teams. Can respect still be shown while raising a fist, linking arms, or bowing heads – as some sports teams have done when the anthem has played in the past year?

The Guardian spoke with experts in non-violent protest to ask how players might express resistance in light of NFL edict.

“They have a number of options,” says Dr Adolphus Belk, a political science professor at Winthrop University. “They can continue to kneel, raise their fists and dare the league to enforce this policy. Or they can engage in some other kind of demonstration: bowing their heads during the anthem or adopting a position of prayer.”

Belk says there’s another option the might cary even greater symbolic weight than taking a knee, while also complying with the NFL’s new ruling: “They can all stay in the locker room … they can engage in an act of civil disobedience by being absent, en masse, without falling afoul of the policy. It would make for a striking visual.”

Hawk Newsome, the leader of Black Lives Matter’s New York branch, thinks players need to go further: he recommends making an impact by not showing up. Newsome says: “I call on all black NFL players not to show up the first day of work for the first day of season. Send a message, let them pay that fine. And what’s the NFL doing with all these fines? Are they investing them in programmes in the community? I think that’s a question we need to see asked too.”

Money raised from NFL fines have traditionally been distributed by the NFL Foundation for programmes including youth football – though not specifically social justice causes.

Some people believe the desire to protest could be greater in the upcoming season, now that the NFL has doubled-down on its position and explicitly silenced black protest. By the end of last season, very few players were openly protesting during the anthem, and the issue had become less prominent in the league. But the NFL’s new stance is likely to intensify resistance from players, particularly as many view Donald Trump’s consistent attacks on black NFL players as the reason for the new policy.

“The president has said that players who kneel during the anthem should be run out of the league, he’s called them SOBs, he more recently said they need to be run out of the country,” says Belk. “He’s now challenging people on their personhood. He might elicit a response that people weren’t inclined to give him in the first place.”

Newsome agrees that the president’s involvement has upped the ante. “The president should be paying more attention to race relations in America and less about what happens on the football field. Now the NFL have doubled down. They had the chance to be a shining star in corporate social responsibility. They could have created programmes in the community. Instead they chose to oppress us. Telling a player to hide in the locker room, stand or pay a fine is an act of oppression.”

Newsome, who made headlines after speaking to a Trump supporters at a Washington DC rally, thinks that the majority white fanbase of the NFL makes an irresistible opportunity for groups trying to advance equal rights. “Black people already know that racism exists … we have to invoke empathy in white America. We need them to take action.” He says the NFL is a perfect stage on which to do that.

Hank Newsome, a Black Lives Matter activist, addresses Trump supporters at a rally in DC

The threat of police brutality is not just theoretical for NFL players and other sports stars – they are not strangers to harassment from law enforcement. “If we go back to what started the demonstrations in the first place, the extrajudicial killings of unarmed civilians at the hands of law enforcement, it’s still happening, not just to US citizens, but to football players themselves” says Belk. He points out that in the past two months Desmond Marrow, a former NFL player, and Sterling Brown, of the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks, have both been victims of excessive police force.

Marrow said police “knocked my teeth out, slammed me on my head and choked me out until I was unconscious” when they arrested him in a parking lot in Georgia. The officer seen choking Marrow in a video of the incident was fired for use of excessive force and a felony charge against Marrow was dropped.

Last week eight officers were disciplined and an apology was made to Brown after footage emerged of him being tasered by police after a supposed parking violation. Brown was not charged with any crime and the video of the incident does not show him raising his voice or resisting arrest.

That’s why the actions that NFL players take next matter: the difference between a knee, a fist, an abstention and a boycott is more than just symbolic. It’s life and death. “Black folk know quite well that it could just as easily be them,” says Belk. “There’s no amount of economic attainment or success that is going to isolate you from this kind of treatment. For those reasons, the issue will continue to come up.”