In some places, they don't just stand.

French athletes sing the Marseillaise before their game:

Italian athletes sing their national anthem:

Argentine athletes sing and cry during their national anthem:

New Zealand rugby team sing before their game:

The Aussie team sing before a game:

The Indian team sing the anthem before a match:

The Mexican team sing their anthem:

And last but not least, the Scottish rugby team sing "Flower of Scotland" before their game:

Some athletes love their extended family as represented by the national (family) song and are not ashamed of belting it out even if their voices are not quite of recording quality.

A good penance for the poor taste shown recently by our NFL teams would be for them to follow suit: link arms and belt out their loyalty and their love of their extended family and for our common home.  Owners and coaches should be down on the field and join in.

But somehow I find it difficult to imagine such a response from the NFL.  We've been taught for half a century that American history is something to be ashamed of, that the record is only one of exploitation and subjugation and so stained that it can never be cleansed.  We must carry our ancestors' guilt from generation to generation.

Most Millennials have likely never even been given a concept of "patriotism" – that you love your country not because it is perfect or lacks warts, but because it is your own, your family, with all its relatives, the good, the bad, and the indifferent.

The NFL has probably not considered a move into that alien territory.  Given our P.C.-obsessed culture, I don't know that it ever can.  It will be too big a leap to make.

But such a gesture – common enough and unremarkable in foreign cultures – and perhaps that alone, could bring back the fans who feel that they are indeed a part of a larger extended family and are not ashamed to sing about their membership in it.