Mark Leibovich:

This was during the height of the national anthem crisis last October. There was a private meeting between a group of players and a group of owners that Roger Goodell, the commissioner, convened at the Park Avenue headquarters.

And it was a private meeting. And one of the participants in this was nice enough to share an audio recording of this with me and Ken Belson, my colleague at The New York Times. And to be able to listen to how the owners talk about this issue, and really the kind of primal fear they have of Donald Trump was very reminiscent somewhat of listening to sort of U.S. senators or congressmen, particularly Republicans, who are living in fear of the next presidential tweet.

It's like you have a sense of someone who is manipulating events from afar. And I was amazed at how scared they sounded, how confused they sounded, and also how shortsighted they sounded. I mean, they are sitting at the top of a multibillion-dollar empire. They can just print money.

I mean, it's not going to go away anytime soon. And yet they're just worried about the next tweet.