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The players kneel. The president tweets.

And the great divide over protests during the national anthem at NFL games grows even wider.

So far the players — at least a handful of them — aren’t backing down. A few took a knee in the first weekend of exhibition games Jay Beagle Jersey , at least two raised a fist during the anthem, and several stayed in the locker room as their way of making a statement.

The NFL reacted by doing nothing, at least publicly. The league’s hastily adopted new policy on protests during the anthem is on hold while it holds talks with the players’ union on an issue that figures to grow more contentious with every game.

That didn’t stop President Donald Trump from weighing in on Twitter, calling for any player who doesn’t stand during the national anthem to be suspended without pay.

For Trump, it’s an issue that resonates with his base. For the protesting players, it’s an issue of social injustice that needs to be raised.

The divide is not only splitting the country, but splintering the NFL.

“I think there are a lot of people that are supportive of the players and then there are a couple of people that have been very vocal against it,” said Duane Brown, one of three Seahawks who protested. “Those people have power. We’ll see what happens.”

What has happened so far is that the protests that began with Colin Kaepernick taking a knee before a 49ers game two seasons ago show no signs of disappearing entirely. If anything, the first preseason games show that while most teams fell in line with the desires of their management, there are some players who aren’t going to back down.

And that could cause major problems not only for protesting players but a league trying to keep its dominant place in American sports.

“The NFL is caught, they can’t really win either way,” said Eric Schiffer Sidney Crosby Jersey , the CEO of Reputation Management Consultants, a Los Angeles-based brand and crisis management firm. “They’ve now come to the conclusion they were alienating conservatives and attempted to mitigate it. But they have only so much they are able to do without alienating the core of their product, which is the players.”

The fact the protests have been turned into something they were never intended to be is a big reason why a resolution will be so difficult. Kaepernick began kneeling during the anthem to protest social injustice against minorities, but Trump and others have portrayed it instead as a protest against the anthem itself and the country it stands for.

Still, an NFL spokesman said the league and the players’ union are involved in “constructive” talks to resolve the issue. But they’re in a battle with time, with the start of the regular season just a few weeks away.

They might want to start with one of the few good suggestions offered publicly so far. It came from Kenny Stills, the Miami wide receiver who took a knee during the national anthem in the Dolphins first preseason game.

Give Kaepernick and former teammate Eric Reid jobs, Stills said, and let players know you’re serious.

“You can’t say as a league you support the players and their protests and then blackball the players who initially started the protests,” Stills said. “To come to the drawing board and talk about solutions, we need to start there as a league, and then we can start drawing up other solutions to some of these other problems.”

Employing Kaepernick and Reid shouldn’t be that much of a problem. Both are NFL players at the highest level, and both seem to have been blackballed from the league — at least unofficially — because of their protests.

Offer them up to every team in the league. Waive any salary cap to do it http://www.officialsabres.com/authentic-adidas-jack-eichel-jersey , and there should be some takers.

If no team bites, assign them through a lottery.

After that, it gets easier. Offer players something in exchange for not protesting during the anthem — perhaps a 30-second commercial spot to highlight social injustice at halftime of every nationally televised game.

The guess is players would respond favorably, partly because they have little alternative. By now they surely understand that their original cause has been hijacked and that they — along with the NFL — are in no-win situations.

Their points can still be made, and perhaps find a more receptive audience.

And, just maybe, the tweets will stop.

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. (AP) — John Elway cut ties with his biggest draft bust Sunday when he waived quarterback Paxton Lynch less than 24 hours after including him on the Denver Broncos‘ 53-man roster.

In another move, the Broncos placed safety Su’a Cravens on IR with an injured left knee and re-signed Isaiah McKenzie, the speedy returner/receiver who was among the team’s cuts a day earlier.

Lynch was jettisoned after the Broncos were awarded fellow third-year quarterback Kevin Hogan off waivers from Washington.

Elway said he and coach Vance Joseph “met with Paxton this morning and informed him that it’s best for everyone to make this move. We appreciate all of Paxton’s hard work as a Bronco, and we wish him well in the future.”

Elway once viewed the athletic but raw Lynch as a future franchise quarterback, moving up in the 2016 NFL draft to select the University of Memphis star with the 26th overall pick in the first round.

That move came in the shadows of Denver’s Super Bowl 50 win and shortly after Peyton Manning’s retirement and Brock Osweiler’s departure.

Elway acknowledged at the time that Lynch was a project who needed some seasoning but he expressed hope that Lynch might be a quick study.

He wasn’t.

Twice, seventh-rounder Trevor Siemian handily beat out Lynch in protracted competitions for the starting QB job.

When Case Keenum was signed in March Mike Condon Jersey , Elway sent Siemian to the Minnesota Vikings, clearing the way for Lynch to serve as the No. 2 quarterback. All he had to do was fend off Chad Kelly, another seventh-rounder.

He couldn’t .

Kelly had a terrific offseason while Lynch regressed this summer before completing 14 of 15 passes against third-stringers in the Broncos’ fourth preseason game last week at Arizona.

Lynch made the team as the third quarterback, but Elway indicated his survival on cutdown day was more a function of Kelly’s inexperience after spending his rookie season on IR last year.

“With Chad not having a lot of experience and not having played in a regular season game before, we thought that we had to go with three quarterbacks,” Elway said, “and Paxton was our third.”

Less than 24 hours later, Elway found a better option.

Hogan and Lynch were both part of the 2016 draft class.

Lynch was the third QB selected overall, after Jared Goff and Carson Wentz. Hogan was the 14th QB taken, by Kansas City with the 162nd overall pick in the fifth round, after setting several records at Stanford, including most career wins by a QB (36) and most rushing yards by a QB (1,249).

Both have made spot appearances in the NFL.

Lynch has played in five games with four starts Tyson Barrie Jersey , going 1-3 with four TDs and four interceptions.

In eight games, including one start, for the Cleveland Browns over the last two seasons, Hogan threw for four TDs with seven interceptions. He also has rushed for 176 yards and a touchdown in 18 attempts, a 9.8-yard average.

He was traded to Washington on April 6 and was waived by the Redskins on Saturday.

Elway and Joseph had held out hope that Lynch was just a late-bloomer , continuing to express their belief in him even as fans had soured on him.

After bypassing the deep quarterback class in this year’s draft, Elway said he still thought Lynch could be a starting NFL quarterback, insisting, “We are not kicking him to the curb.”

That thinking changed Sunday.

Cravens will miss at least half the season now that he’s on IR. He missed most of training camp and the first three preseason games with soreness in his left knee, the same one he had surgery on last year to repair a torn meniscus while he was with Washington.

The Broncos acquired him in a trade this spring.