President Donald Trump’s criticism of NFL players and the league itself at a political rally Friday evening, which he followed up with a series of tweets Saturday, marked the latest entry in his long-running dalliance with the NFL, which, in some ways, is like a super-elite country club whose membership Trump has never been able to attain. In 1983, when the going rate for an NFL team was about $80 million, Trump spent $6 million to buy the New Jersey Generals of the rival U.S.