Buffalo Bills players kneel during the American National anthem before an NFL game against the Denver Broncos on Sept. 24, 2017, in New York. (Photo by Brett Carlsen/Getty Images)

The Baltimore Ravens are happy this week, and so are the men in suits who run the National Football League. Their season of twisted ligaments and forearms to the Adam’s apple has begun, and hardly a word has been whispered about the troublesome act of kneeling in silence.

The Ravens opened the new season Sept. 9 with a resounding win over the Buffalo Bills, in which all players apparently stood at attention during the playing of the national anthem.

This meant they could get on with the official business of knocking heads together, and putting aside any dignified but nettlesome gestures about racial injustice.

This reportedly reflected behavior around the league, where only two players were found to be kneeling. Colin Kaepernick, in forced retirement (except from Nike ads) after setting off the great kneeling conflict, saluted them both.

So the Ravens got on with business. They not only clobbered hapless Buffalo, 47 to 3, in a pitiless rain, but showed off some new faces and some much-desired openness in their offense.

We’ll soon see if the Ravens are that good, or Buffalo that bad.

But, in a time when the president of the United States has made it a point to politicize football – and all those who kneel – the happiest people in the NFL are its owners.

They love the apparent fizzling-out of the kneeling, and they’ve hated Donald Trump’s use of it for political purposes.

Remember that secret tape recording from last spring? The New York Times uncovered it. About 30 NFL types had gathered at league headquarters after Trump derided the league and all those players who kneeled during the anthem.

“Throw them out,” he demanded.

What the owners subsequently talked about was how upset they were with the president – and these owners included several who have been high-profile Trump supporters.

“We’ve got to be careful not to be baited by Trump or whoever else,” said Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie, who called the Trump presidency “disastrous.”

“We have to find a way,” he told the other owners, “to not be divided and not get baited.”

“The problem we have is, we have a president who will use that [kneeling] as fodder to do his mission that I don’t feel is in the best interests of America,” said Patriots’ owner Robert Kraft, who is a long-time supporter of Trump’s. “It’s divisive and it’s horrible.”

Such remarks – and others – were said in the privacy of that meeting. None of these owners, nor other officials at the meeting, imagined they were being taped and that their words would later be made public.

They know how divisive the kneeling has been, and they want such gestures removed from all discussion about their game.

What a pity this kneeling business has been so willfully misinterpreted by so many people. Not a single player – not those who kneeled, nor those who sympathized – has called the kneeling an attempt to show disrespect for the anthem for the American flag. All have called it a silent, dignified gesture against police brutality.

The absence of that gesture means we can all stop thinking about police violence – and start paying full attention to the violence of this very brutal game.

 

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