Texas Governor Greg Abbott claims he was joking when he suggested earlier this week that Texas might pass a bill requiring players to stand and put their hand on their heart during the national anthem. 

Abbott made the comments in response to the NFL’s statement regarding a “bathroom bill” targeting transgender people, which suggested that the league might reconsider locating events such as the Super Bowl in Texas were the state to pass the bill. Abbott said the NFL “needs to concentrate on playing football and get the heck out of politics.”

He followed that up by appearing on Fox News and suggesting the possibility of the national anthem bill:

“The NFL has coddled its players who refused to stand for the national anthem. ... Imagine this, if the NFL decides to come down on the state of Texas, I might just pass a bill here in the state of Texas mandating that all NFL players have to stand and put their hand on the heart when the national anthem is played. If the NFL really wants to solve this problem about bathrooms for people who are transgender, the NFL should impose on all of its teams to put their own bathrooms into their stadiums to accommodate those with transgenders, as opposed to trying to dictate to states what laws they must comply with.”

Such a law would be unconstitutional, as several constitutional law experts explained to the Dallas Morning News

Abbott, who had previously compared the NFL’s response to the “bathroom” bill to its response to Deflategate, had a spokesman tell the DMN, “It was intentional hyperbole to make a point: demonstrating the NFL’s own shortcoming of how they are disconnecting with their fan base by allowing players to disrespect the U.S. flag.”

The NFL allowing players to refuse to stand and put their hands over their hearts during the national anthem is not particularly relevant to whether the NFL would choose to hold events such as the Super Bowl in a state that passes a law targeting transgender people. Additionally, whether or not the suggestion of a national anthem bill was hyperbole intended to make a point does not change the fact that such a law would be unconstitutional.