It seems very obvious to me that there cannot be uniformity of opinion among NFL players. It seems most likely a few very vocal but dim witted people are yelling a lot in the locker room and cowing people into supporting them.
Like police, like military, sports teams need each other. They need to be able to depend on one another. And this Oakland story, if true, shows what can happen if individuals go their own way.
So even there is no unity at all, a front of unity is being presented.
If the Russians—or any other group or interest, like George Soros–truly do aim to undermine American faith in our institutions, getting idiotic and morally incoherent politics introduced into what should be a non-political arena would be a great way to do it.
Now, we clearly idolize sports and sports heroes much too much in any event, so this cannot be called a major cultural loss, but it will be interesting to see how things play out. Net good may come of it, albeit not for the NFL.