On Sunday, we saw the NFL's final four whittled down to two for Super Bowl LII in Minneapolis. In less than two weeks, the Philadelphia Eagles will get a chance to avenge their Super Bowl XXXIX loss to the New England Patriots.
If you're one of those fans that I wrote about a week ago (which got me the Breitbart treatment), then something interesting is about to happen. President Trump has been fighting a culture war with the National Football League over players kneeling during the national anthem. Many of his supporters have called them disrespectful and have been boycotting the league ever since September when Trump initiated the war on Twitter.
If a player wants the privilege of making millions of dollars in the NFL,or other leagues, he or she should not be allowed to disrespect....— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 23, 2017
Trump demanded that NFL Commissioner either fire or suspend any player that doesn't stand for the national anthem. Goodell would do no such thing, and subsequently, their ratings fell partly due to a political/cultural boycott, but also the lacking quality of the NFL's product.
But what will happen if the New England Patriots bring home their sixth Lombardi trophy? Well, in addition to yours truly being thrilled, Donald Trump would be pretty stoked, too. After all, Trump has a good relationship with Patriots owner Robert Kraft, head coach Bill Belichick, and future Hall of Fame quarterback Tom Brady.
If the Patriots win, they will almost certainly go to the White House like they did last year, and Trump will surely get another Patriots jersey. Will that end the beef between Trump and the NFL? Not necessarily. He could very well continue to dish out insults to Goodell and protesting players on Twitter while also extending a warm welcome to whoever wins the Super Bowl to the White House. Although, if the Eagles were to win, would they even accept a White House invite?
Of course, we won't have concrete answers to these questions because only Trump knows what's in his heart and how he really feels about the NFL. What I will stress is that whatever makes Trump look like "the man" to his base, that's the card he'll play.
Siraj Hashmi is a commentary video editor and writer for the Washington Examiner.