Don’t kid yourself.

You are not going to flip to any channel away from the NFL when the season begins. You are not going to keep your TV off on any Sunday.

You like to have your Sunday getaway to places like Los Angeles, Jacksonville, Seattle, New York, Nashville and Cleveland. You’re going to put on your favorite NFL jersey or team T-shirt and yell at a team or game official who can’t hear a thing you’re saying.

Because you love football that much.

You’ve been aching for kickoff to come. (By the way, the season opener is Sept. 7. Look at you, taking a mental note.) You’re loyal to a team. You talk about football in church.

(You are not, however, getting sleepy under the spell of a spinning wheel.)

Yeah, you’re hurt that Colin Kaepernick can’t find a team to play on when Michael Bennett has the Seattle Seahawks’ unwavering support. You might even believe the NFL is blackballing Kaepernick when it’s ultimately each owner’s decision whether he or anyone is a fit for his/her team.

Then again, you might not be bothered.

This is the same NFL that somehow convinces the least casual of fans to throw a big party with barbecue and hors d’oeuvres each February. It’s the same league that egregiously gave Greg Hardy another chance to play after disturbing images of what he allegedly did to Nicole Holder surfaced.

You might have had a problem with an arbiter calling for a 10-game suspension to be reduced to four so Hardy could continue to act like a jerk on and off the field. But you didn’t quit watching, did you?

So, don’t kid yourself.

The NFL has you sucked in, just like the idea that Conor McGregor can fight in the same ring with Floyd Mayweather Jr. (And if he did, I’ll shop around for Alpha-Bits and eat my words.)

Football is a Sunday ritual. It’s all around you. It’s all around me.

Little kids play it. Big kids play it. Adults dream they could still play it.

Aside from the cited “substantial and persuasive evidence supporting a finding that [Ezekiel Elliott] engaged in physical violence against Ms. [Tiffany] Thompson on multiple occasions during the week of July 16, 2016,” the game will go on, and you will want to know who won or lost. Football is the ultimate reality game besides the reality of life.

True, the NFL is trying not to allow itself to be a safe haven for menaces to society, laying down the law where law enforcement can’t or won’t. But the frustration over Elliott’s suspension is that we the fans don’t know the extent of his misdeeds, and we can’t be too sure the results of the league’s investigation into the alleged violence was the sole reason for his suspension.

Either Cowboys owner Jerry Jones was bluffing when he said he saw no reason for Elliott to be punished, or the NFL wasn’t transparent enough. It wouldn’t be the first such instance.

While the frustration isn’t keeping me from watching the Cowboys, let me be clear that if Elliott committed physical violence to any degree, that should be firmly punished. It won’t change my viewing habits.

But if you buy all this stuff that league officials are discriminating against Kaepernick, you may as well buy the idea many more players should be discriminated against.

Well, they’re not. Team owners just don’t know how to handle a quarterback whose message is louder than his play. An unnamed executive said as much to ESPN, and he couldn’t be more spot-on.

Truth is, Kaepernick has put together some decent numbers over the years, and that shouldn’t be overlooked. But how does an entire team handle distractions brought on by someone in a key position?

Ask the owners, and they couldn’t — er, wouldn’t — guess out loud without giving their names.

No athlete is wrong for protesting the ills in our country, though not paying proper respects to those who died for our freedom is a bit shortsighted. So is protesting a league that has issued no ban on such a player.

The league is as imperfect as humanity, but that hasn’t kept you from watching, not even just 10 minutes worth, has it? It’s a big part of American humanity.

Just don’t kid yourself over boycotting the NFL.

I.C. Murrell can be reached at 721-2435 or at ic.murrell@panews.com. On Twitter: @ICMurrellPANews