On Wednesday, the National Football League announced a new policy requiring that, when “The Star-Spangled Banner” is played before games during the upcoming season, “all team and league personnel on the field shall stand and show respect for the flag and the Anthem.” Teams whose players kneel or otherwise fail to “show respect for the flag,” as the league’s statement puts it a second time, will be fined. Additionally, teams may choose to fine their own players directly if they kneel. The anthem edict was reportedly approved unanimously by thirty-one of the league’s owners, without input from the N.F.L. Players Association. (Jed York, the C.E.O. of the San Francisco 49ers, said he abstained from the vote, explaining later that he wanted to discuss the new policy with his players.)

The N.F.L. has travelled quite a distance since September, when Donald Trump ignited a controversy by profanely criticizing the handful of players who had, since 2016, knelt during the national anthem to protest police brutality and racial inequality. Speaking at a rally in Alabama, Trump asked the crowd, “Wouldn’t you love to see one of these N.F.L. owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now’?” In the days following Trump’s comments, the entire N.F.L., including the commissioner, owners, coaches, and players, banded together and sharply criticized the President. This brief display of unity may have overshadowed the original intent of the anthem protests, but what emerged from it, nonetheless, was an assertion that football players are not merely freakishly fit entertainers but fellow-citizens whose opinions are worth considering and whose rights are worthy of protection.

It was a curious moment of friction—football at odds with a Republican Administration and the wider conservative culture with which the sport has long had ties. Trump told his supporters to boycott the N.F.L. The commissioner of the league, Roger Goodell, called the President’s comments “divisive.” Many team owners and executives strenuously defended their players’ rights to kneel. Mark Murphy, the C.E.O. of the Green Bay Packers, said, “We believe it is important to support any of our players who choose to peacefully express themselves with the hope of change for good. As Americans, we are fortunate to be able to speak openly and freely.” The conflict produced odd bedfellows and striking scenes: Jerry Jones, the owner of the Dallas Cowboys, who had donated to Trump’s Inauguration committee, took a knee alongside his players, locking arms, in the moments before the anthem played at the team’s next game. Dez Bryant, the team’s fiery receiver, announced that “Trump can’t divide this.”

The moment of solidarity, however, was short-lived, as was the N.F.L.’s stance as a crusader for free speech and peaceful protest. Two weeks later, after Vice-President Mike Pence had made a show of leaving an Indianapolis Colts game at which players kneeled, Jones announced that any of his players who were “disrespectful to the flag” might not be allowed to play. A few days after that, Goodell sent a letter to the league’s owners in which he wrote, “Like many of our fans, we believe that everyone should stand for the national anthem.”

This week, Goodell and the owners completed their retreat, officially capitulating to those fans who, spurred on by Trump, threatened to cancel their cable packages and set their televisions and Cowboys jerseys on fire. The policy is billed as a compromise because it also allows players, if they wish, to remain off the field during the national anthem. “We are dedicated to continuing our collaboration with players to advance the goals of justice and fairness in all corners of our society,” Goodell said in a statement announcing the new rules. But the desired result is clear: this fall, the sidelines will be rid of kneeling players. In the statement, Goodell all but begs for forgiveness, not from the players whose rights he has trampled but from those fans who claimed outrage, adopting the same language about “respect” and “patriotism” that Trump and his supporters have so disingenuously used: “It was unfortunate that on-field protests created a false perception among many that thousands of NFL players were unpatriotic. This is not and was never the case.”

Goodell might have noted, as many executives in the N.F.L. did last fall, that the players’ decision to kneel was itself an act of patriotism, or at the very least well within their rights as private citizens. (It would be too much to expect Goodell to explain why, exactly, the N.F.L. makes such a show of flag-waving and anthem-blaring, or why it has entwined itself so fully with the American military.) In a tepid gesture at pleasing everyone, Goodell, elsewhere in the statement, even acknowledged the power of the players’ protests, writing that “the efforts by many of our players sparked awareness and action around issues of social justice that must be addressed.”

If Goodell thinks that kneeling helped bring attention to an important and ongoing political crisis, why, then, have the owners insisted that it stop? Chris Long, a defensive lineman for the Philadelphia Eagles and an outspoken advocate for the rights of players to kneel, offered a persuasive explanation on Wednesday. “This is fear of a diminished bottom line,” he tweeted. “It’s also fear of a president turning his base against a corporation. This is not patriotism. These owners don’t love America more than the players demonstrating and taking real action to improve it.” Long’s teammate Malcolm Jenkins wrote, “Everyone loses when voices get stifled.”

There is something especially bitter in what the N.F.L. seems to view as an accommodation of the rights of its players, leaving them the option of staying off the field when the anthem is played. The entire purpose of kneeling, as it has been thoroughly and patiently explained by Colin Kaepernick and the other players who have taken up his mantle, has been to call attention to injustice during a moment of high visibility. It wasn’t about a song or a flag. Like all protests of the status quo, it is bound to make some people uncomfortable. By shunting players who wish to speak off to the locker room, while leaving the rest of the stadium to carry on with business as usual, Goodell has marginalized and silenced what was already a minority opinion.

The N.F.L., we’ve been told for the past year, is desperate to stay out of politics—to try to make everyone happy and take money from all sides. But it’s clear that some constituents are judged to be more important, more valuable, than others. Trump and his supporters no longer need to choose between their love of football and their love of owning the libs. On Wednesday, Mike Pence tweeted a screenshot of an article about the new rules, with the phrase #Winning. Later, he wrote, “Today’s decision by the @NFL is a win for the fans, a win for @POTUS, and a win for America.” In an interview taped with Fox News, Trump praised the owners’ decision. “I don’t think people should be staying in locker rooms, but, still, I think it’s good,” he said. “You have to stand, proudly, for the national anthem or you shouldn’t be playing. You shouldn’t be there. Maybe you shouldn’t be in the country.” The N.F.L. has returned to the fold. Football is great again.