NFL Players Stance

CLAIM

NFL players did not stand for the national anthem until the Defense Dept. started paying the league to stage patriotic displays in 2009.

[...]

An image widely circulated on Facebook in response to the National Football League’s anthem controversy held that NFL players did not stand on the sidelines during the playing of the U.S. national anthem before games prior to 2009. Instead, they stayed in locker rooms during the anthem and did not begin standing along the sidelines for renditions of “The Star-Spangled Banner” until after the Defense Department began paying the NFL to hold patriotic displaysin 2009.

[...]

Prior to that year, whether or not to appear on the field for the anthem was left up to teams’ discretion. In one instance, the Philadelphia Eagles and Washington Redskins did so on 24 November 1963, just two days after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

[...]

The United States Department of Defense paid the National Football League $5.4 million between 2011 and 2014, and the National Guard [paid] $6.7 million between 2013 and 2015 to stage on-field patriotic ceremonies as part of military recruitment budget-line items.

[...]

It's unclear whether players started appearing on the field during the playing of the national anthem in conjunction with Defense Department payments to the NFL or whether the change was coincidental.

  Snopes

"Coincidental."

The practice of “paid patriotism” came to light on 30 April 2015, when Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) released a statement chiding the New Jersey Army National Guard for paying between $97,000 and $115,000 to the New York Jets for a series of promotions involving military personnel. That November, Flake and fellow Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain issued a report stating that the Defense Department had been paying for patriotic displays in football and other sports between 2011 and 2014:

[...]   While well intentioned, we wonder just how many of these displays included a disclaimer that these events were in fact sponsored by the DOD at taxpayer expense. Even with that disclosure, it is hard to understand how a team accepting taxpayer funds to sponsor a military appreciation game, or to recognize wounded warriors or returning troops, can be construed as anything other than paid patriotism.

Does that have anything to do with why Trump has a bee in his bonnet about both Flake and McCain?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

Precisely.  Kim Jong Un would be proud of us.