There is really only one story to talk about in the NFL this week, the league’s controversial new national anthem policy that bans players from kneeling or protesting during the anthem, but allows them to remain in the locker room.

Let’s get right to it:

■ This new policy is being framed in many media outlets as the NFL caving to President Trump, and creating an unnecessary PR headache for itself. “The league capitulated to a president who relishes demonizing black athletes,’’ wrote the New York Times editorial board. “NFL caves to Trump’’ was the headline by Politico. “Congratulations NFL, ya played ya’self,’’ ESPN’s Jemele Hill wrote on Twitter.

That’s one way to look at it. Another is that the conservative-leaning NFL owners got exactly what they wanted, working in concert with Trump.

Don’t forget that seven owners donated $1 million each to Trump’s inaugural committee personally or through corporations — Jerry Jones, Bob McNair, Dan Snyder, Shad Khan, Woody Johnson, Stan Kroenke, and Robert Kraft.

The Browns’ Jimmy Haslam and the Buccaneers’ Ed Glazer made six-figure donations.

Glazer recently held a major fund-raiser for Trump at his Beverly Hills mansion. Kraft has flown on Air Force One with Trump, and is one of a handful of people given direct clearance to Trump through the White House switchboard, per New York Magazine. In 2016, The Guardian reported that NFL owners donated 40 times as much money to Republican causes as they did Democratic.

And last week, Deadspin published a 2017 interview with Mike Brown, in which the Bengals owner was upset that the NFL league office condemned a proposed “bathroom bill’’ in Texas.

“Is it their place to speak for me?’’ Brown asked of the league office. “I’m part of the NFL. I’m not saying that. I didn’t authorize that.’’

This anthem policy is especially a victory for Jones and McNair, who had been leading the crusade to end the protests. Jones in October announced that his players were banned from kneeling.

“Let me be real, real clear: The thing that the National Football League needs to do and the Dallas Cowboys are going to do is stand for the flag,’’ Jones said then. “What I have the right to say is who’s on that football field.’’

McNair, who donated $3.4 million to conservative causes between 2009-13and supported the Texas bathroom bill until it threatened to take away the last Houston Super Bowl, said at the March owners’ meetings, “Our playing fields, that’s not the place for political statements. That’s not the place for religious statements. That’s the place for football. And that’s what I think we need to be doing.’’

The NFL tried to frame this policy as a compromise, but it’s not. It’s a decided victory for Trump and the owners who support him.

■ One big question I had this past week — what kind of punishment can the teams hand down to the players? A league source pointed me to this clause in Article 42.1 of the collective bargaining agreement: “Conduct detrimental to Club — maximum fine of an amount equal to one week’s salary and/or suspension without pay for a period not to exceed four (4) weeks.’’

So each team can devise its own punishments, but will have the ability to suspend a player without pay for up to four games — an eye-opening punishment, to say the least. The union can then challenge the punishment with a grievance and a subsequent hearing.

Classifying a civil rights protest as “conduct detrimental’’ and fining a player up to a quarter of his salary has the potential to be another PR nightmare for the league.

■ If the owners hoped that this policy would appease everyone and end the conversation, they badly miscalculated. Already there are multiple reports stating that players who weren’t considering an anthem protest may now do so, just to spite the owners.

This new policy essentially turns the national anthem into an attendance-taking exercise. During the preseason and the first few weeks of the regular season, all eyes will be on the sidelines, figuring out who didn’t come out of the locker room for the anthem. And those players will still be singled out and lambasted by conservative NFL fans and pundits, the same as if they were kneeling on the sideline.

The issue will continue to divide fans and at least initially take attention away from the product, which is the opposite of what the owners claim to want.

■ Already, we’re seeing some second thoughts from NFL owners from the more liberal cities. San Francisco’s Jed York abstained from voting on the proposal, and Oakland’s Mark Davis reportedly did, as well. Jets owner Chris Johnson already has stated that he will simply absorb the team fines and not punish the players who kneel. I suspect that other owners, likely on the coasts, will take the same approach.

But what’s interesting is that, other than York and reportedly Davis, the other 30 owners still agreed to the new rule. That includes Johnson and more socially liberal owners such as the Giants’ John Mara, Seattle’s Paul Allen, Miami’s Stephen Ross, Kraft, and Khan.

Kraft always talks about being a “good partner,’’ and it seems that the owners who perhaps didn’t feel as passionately about the issue capitulated to the McNairs and Joneses.

■ The policy has six points, and the sixth needs clarifying:

“The Commissioner will impose appropriate discipline on league personnel who do not stand and show respect for the flag and the Anthem.’’

Per an NFL spokesman, this means that Roger Goodell has the ability to discipline non-team employees that protest during the anthem — game officials, chain crew, and so on. But Goodell cannot discipline players or team employees — only the teams can.

■ The NFL passed this rule without hammering out many of the details — namely, what the punishments would be. The rule states that the NFL will fine the teams if anyone doesn’t “stand and show respect for the flag,’’ but the fine amounts aren’t known. It is also unclear if the fine will be heavier if, say, five players protest instead of one, or if the fines will escalate if a player doesn’t stand for the anthem on multiple occasions.

Of course, the NFL didn’t define what constitutes “show respect for the flag,’’ either. Will players violate the policy by raising a fist? Or locking arms? Or facing away from the flag?

“We didn’t define exactly what they have to be doing, but I think everybody understands what it means to be respectful during the anthem,’’ Steelers owner Art Rooney said.

Except Rooney should know by now that nothing about this issue creates consensus.

■ The players don’t seem to have much recourse. The NFL Players Association said it will “review the new policy and challenge any aspect of it that is inconsistent with the collective bargaining agreement,’’ but has not questioned any specific part of the policy yet.

Some have suggested that players should uniformly skip out on offseason practices, since they are voluntary and players don’t get paid. But that is tricky. First off, many players across the league do have five- and six-figure offseason workout bonuses that they would be forgoing. And the other players, except rookies, do get paid for offseason practices — $215 per session, or about $7,700 for participating in the entire nine-week program (36 practices). That may not sound like a lot of money, but players generally don’t say no to free money. And players only get paid if they attend at least three out of four practices in a given week, reducing the “voluntary’’ aspect of it.

Not to mention, most players are fighting for roster spots and their contracts aren’t guaranteed, meaning they don’t want to rock the boat by skipping offseason practices. So organizing any sort of mass protest would be difficult.

■ The NFL didn’t start requiring players to be on the field for the anthem until the 2009 season. And it isn’t the first league to have an explicit national anthem policy. The NBA, seen as the most socially progressive sports league in the country, has had one on the books for at least the last two decades: “Players, coaches, and trainers must stand and line up in a dignified posture along the foul lines during the playing of the American and/or Canadian national anthems.’’

And when the protest issue reached a boil last fall, NBA commissioner Adam Silver wrote a letter to all 30 teams reminding them of the NBA’s anthem policy.

TALK OF THE TOWN

Patriots always generating buzz

■ Robert Kraft has been doing his best to downplay the drama between Bill Belichick, Tom Brady, and Rob Gronkowski.

In March, Kraft reasserted his confidence in Belichick in light of the Malcolm Butler benching in the Super Bowl. Kraft minimized the Brady-Belichick tension, saying “Bill and Tom communicate and meet a lot’’ and said the three had a sit-down.

And last week in Atlanta, Kraft downplayed Brady’s absences from organized team activities and focused on the fact that he’ll be back for minicamp in a couple of weeks.

“My point of view — nothing’s changed, everything is good, and I think he’s very excited about coming back. And I know we’re excited to have him,’’ Kraft said.

But Brady and Belichick didn’t get the memo about showing a united front. All Brady had to do was bite his lip and show up for OTAs, but he purposely didn’t. All Belichick had to do was say some nice platitudes about Brady in his news conference, but he purposely said, “I’m not going to talk about the people that aren’t here.’’

Kraft is doing his best to minimize the dysfunction, but Brady and Belichick keep fanning the flames.

■ 49ers defensive end Cassius Marsh, who spent last offseason and the first half of 2017 with the Patriots, told the San Francisco Chronicle that he wasn’t surprised by Jimmy Garoppolo’s stellar performance last year, winning all five of his starts.

“I already knew that was going to happen; I called it before anybody,’’ Marsh said. “I knew because I was with the Patriots and he would shred our defense every day. He’d shred the first team every day, and it looked no different than when Tom was on the field. He’s a much better athlete than Tom; he’s super-disciplined and works hard. I’m very happy to have him as my quarterback.’’

That reminds us of a Belichick quote from 2016:

“Jimmy could go out there and run everything that Tom can run,’’ he said. “And when we put Jimmy in there, it’s really seamless. You can’t, unless you were actually looking at the position, if you could just block out that position and say which guy was in there at quarterback, I don’t know if you would know a lot of times.’’

■ The Patriots handed out $258,000 in guaranteed money to their nine undrafted free agents, per NFLPA records. Running back Ralph Webb got $70,000, defensive lineman John Atkins got $62,500, and cornerback J.C. Jackson got $60,000. Those numbers represent what the players will still receive even if they are cut. If they make the team, their base salary will be $480,000, or $28,235 per week.

ETC.

Carolina is on new owner’s mind

Panthers fans are a little nervous about the future of the team after founding owner Jerry Richardson was forced to sell because of workplace harassment issues. New owner David Tepper, a native of Pittsburgh who lives in New Jersey and Miami, said at his introductory news conference on Tuesday that he won’t move the team.

“What’s the name of the team? Carolina Panthers. It’s going to be the Carolina Panthers,’’ he said.

But Tepper might try to spread the team’s footprint across state lines into South Carolina, potentially with a new practice facility.

“Listen, there is a logical place for this team, and it’s Charlotte, and it is the Carolina Panthers,’’ he said. “And that means this team has to have some kind of presence in the Carolinas, and last time I saw, how many are there? That’s right, there’s two of them.’’

Extra points

Two teams are already scrambling to replace impact players who are lost for the season after suffering torn ACLs in practice this past week. The biggest gut punch was the Chargers losing potential star tight end Hunter Henry, who has caught 12 TD passes over his first two seasons. The Chargers opted not to re-sign Antonio Gates because of Henry, who was expected to take on a full-time role for the first time. And the Eagles lost backup linebacker and special teams ace Paul Worrilow, who has started 52 games in five seasons and was going to be a key depth piece. These injuries illustrate why it’s hard to blame any veteran who chooses to stay away from voluntary OTAs . . . Mike Vrabel has brought the Patriot Way to Tennessee. Reporters have noted the team’s stricter media policies, which include requiring all interviews to be done on the field and not in the locker room. The Titans are following NFL guidelines, but they had always been one of the more media-friendly teams in the league, allowing more access than required . . . Russell Gage couldn’t stick to a position at LSU, playing defensive back his first two years then receiver his last two years, and his versatility may help him stick with the Falcons. The sixth-round pick played both receiver and cornerback during rookie minicamp earlier this month, and he’s working on special teams, as well. “It was encouraging to see from him, ‘Hey, I can learn both sides of the ball, and hey, whatever you want, Coach.’ What coach doesn’t want to hear that?’’ Falcons coach Dan Quinn told reporters . . . Both of the primary players involved in the Dolphins’ Bullygate scandal from 2013 have had scary episodes this year. Jonathan Martin went into police custody and then checked himself into a mental institution after making a threatening social media post shortly after the Parkland shootings. And Richie Incognito was involuntarily committed to a mental health facility this past week after a bizarre incident at a South Florida gym, in which police described Incognito as “suffering an altered, paranoid state.’’ Here’s hoping both can get the help they need . . . Quote of the week is from Jerry Glanville, the 76-year-old defensive coordinator of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats of the Canadian Football League, via ESPN: “Retirement is very, very overrated because the next time they list your name in the paper, you died. You’re better off being upright.’’

Ben Volin can be reached at ben.volin@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @BenVolin. Material from interviews, wire services, other beat writers, and league and team sources was used in this report.