The Eagles now enter the NFL season with the president's target on their backs

The Super Bowl champions are a politically active team from a city run by Democrats. They are the ideal focus for Donald Trump’s Twitter fingers

A new front line has been established in Donald Trump’s NFL offensive, a proxy battle in the culture wars first launched when he seized on the national anthem last fall in Alabama, urging the league’s owners to cut loose any player who engaged in the protest of racial injustice.

Welcome to Philadelphia: presumptive face of the resistance.

That night Trump, so skillful at leveraging the fault lines that divide us, struck on a fountainhead of easy political points by taking the fight to what may have been America’s last great unifying arena: the games we watch. It ultimately led to a decisive optical victory for the administration last month when the acquiescent NFL, which had initially denounced the president’s bellicose rhetoric, unveiled a revised policy requiring every player, coach, trainer, ballboy, referee and executive to stand for the national anthem or face punishment. #Winning, indeed.

He returned to the wellspring on Monday when he disinvited the Philadelphia Eagles from the White House ceremony traditionally held for the NFL champions amid reports that fewer than 10 members of the team’s 53-man roster were expected to make the trip down I-95. “They disagree with their president because he insists that they proudly stand for the national anthem, hand on heart, in honor of the great men and women of our military and the people of our country,” said Trump.

First rule of any sport: Keep your eye on the ball.

Never mind that not once during the regular season or playoffs did any player on the Eagles kneel during the anthem – despite the wishful thinking of Fox News – and never mind that several team members have gone on record to say the president’s stance on the anthem had nothing to do with their decision to not make the trip, citing reasons including racism, sexism and the unwillingness to be used as political props. Philadelphia safety Malcolm Jenkins, the team’s defensive captain, attempted a put a fine point on the mendacity on Tuesday, accusing the administration of lying to “paint the picture that these players are anti-American, anti-flag and anti-military”.

The White House, in the span of a news cycle, managed to adroitly and fraudulently recenter the issue on the anthem with an intellectual dishonesty almost inspiring in its audacity, holding instead an ominously titled Celebration of America on the south lawn that consisted of a four-minute speech by the president sandwiched by performances of the national anthem and God Bless America.

And so ends round one of a fight that appears bound to last all season long.

The Eagles are the defending Super Bowl champions, which elevates their profile above the league’s rank and file by default. They’ll be front and center in prime time when the regular season kicks off in September. They are by definition the NFL’s standard-bearer, a curious state of affairs given their earned reputation as the league’s wokest club due to a roster that includes some of the league’s most socially conscious players.

It doesn’t take a genius to see where this is headed after the last nine months. All defending champions enter the next season with a bullseye on their back, but it would be difficult to genetically engineer a riper target for the president’s Twitter fingers.

The official response from the city has been spirited. Mayor Jim Kenney issued a pointed statement calling Trump’s patriotism into question: “Disinviting them from the White House only proves that our President is not a true patriot, but a fragile egomaniac obsessed with crowd size and afraid of the embarrassment of throwing a party to which no one wants to attend.”

Philadelphia, like most urban centers, skews heavily Democrat. The city waited 57 years for the Eagles to win another NFL championship, but it’s been even longer – when Barney Samuel was re-elected in 1947 – since they last voted in a Republican mayor.

But the idea that Eagles fans are unilaterally on board with the team’s political slant, and against Trump’s flag fixation, is laughable. The broader fan base is more conservative than it’s been cast in the national media over the last few days, a truth supported by any quick trip into a Philly.com comments section or a lap around the sprawling lots in south Philadelphia before any home game last season, where “I Stand For The National Anthem” bootleg T-shirts featuring the team’s logo were as common as cornhole set-ups.

All of this is unwelcome news for those in Philadelphia who resist the intersection of sports and politics, for you would be hard-pressed to recall a time when the illusory firewall keeping them apart was more nakedly exposed.

But as long as the NFL continues to reflect the deep political and cultural divides of the nation itself, the champions of America’s most popular league will be fair game. The Eagles have been drawn into a game of 4D chess with a maddening opponent and they’re still very much in the opening. May the best team win.