Things have not gone well for the NFL. This season was worse than that last. Ever since players started to kneel during the Anthem, Americans have been tuning out.

This was unthinkable in years past. Yet because of the cowardly actions of the league, this is the reality. Support for the sport is at an all-time low. Football-loving Americans are shocked at what they are seeing. Stadiums are empty. Ratings are dropping.

Now it seems like the NFL can’t even maintain its schedule. It dropped one of its biggest games of the year.

From Independent Journal Review:

“Sunday Night Football” has called a timeout on this week’s regular-season game.

With the NFL’s “Sunday Night Football” in a ratings falloff, the playoff picture getting clearer, and it being New Year’s Eve and all, the league is bowing to the inevitable and canceling the event.

The league slipped the news in a tweet:

The @NFL has finalized the Week 17 schedule. pic.twitter.com/P9RnwwI1EI

— Michael Signora (@NFLfootballinfo) December 25, 2017

The NFL’s senior vice president of broadcasting, Howard Katz, said games with playoff implications will all be played either at 1 p.m. or 4:25 p.m. ET because it was “fair” to the fans.

Clearly, the NFL is hoping to create buzz around the games to increase ratings at the earlier times to get what will be called a ratings win.

The league’s Sunday night ratings spiral was likely to take a horrible hit if the nighttime game had been played.

CNN reports that the last time the league scheduled a game for New Year’s Eve, ratings plummeted 25 percent.

It’s pretty sad if you think about it. The NFL was a major institution. Americans of all stripes loved the sport. They proudly backed their home team. The Super Bowl was almost a holiday for many. But today Americans are shocked at what’s happened.

Entitled players insulted our Flag. League owners only made things worse. They refused to confront players. Then they tried to pay them off with millions of dollars. Fans only continued to disappear.

Can the league be saved? Will things change in the coming years? Perhaps. But only if the NFL’s leaders man up. They must end the kneeling charade once and for all. Only then will they be able to restore trust with the fans.

But that might never happen.

Source: IJR