Colin Kaepernick, a decade after his kneeling protest during the national anthem, says the NFL is still 'actively blackballing' him. In an interview with NBC News, the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback reiterated his long-held belief that the league has kept him out because of his political activism, and he criticized the NFL's social justice initiatives as insufficient.
'I'm not gonna support an organization that one, is actively blackballing me, but two, has targeted my brothers who have been protesting as part of this as well,' Kaepernick told the outlet. 'I watch college football.' He added that there is no single definitive moment he can point to, but rather, once he became a free agent in 2017 and his political and societal beliefs were known, no team wanted him.
Kaepernick's protest began on August 26, 2016, when he sat during the anthem before a preseason game against the San Diego Chargers, later switching to a kneel. The action was meant to draw attention to police brutality and racial inequality in the United States, and it turned him into one of the most divisive figures in sports. He opted out of his 49ers contract in March 2017, and no team has signed him since.
Kaepernick pointed to his on-field resume as evidence that football ability was not the issue. 'Coming on the back of going to a Super Bowl, going to an NFC Championship, setting records, and not a single team would bring me in, even for a workout?' he said. He still holds the NFL single-game playoff record for rushing yards by a quarterback with 181 against the Green Bay Packers, set during the 49ers' run to Super Bowl XLVII, which they lost to the Baltimore Ravens 34-31 on February 3, 2013. In the 2013 season, the 49ers fell to the Seattle Seahawks in the NFC Championship game, and Seattle was the only team to bring him in for a meeting during the 2017 offseason. Kaepernick claimed that then-head coach Pete Carroll and general manager John Schneider discussed his political beliefs during that conversation.
Kaepernick also said that some coaches and general managers reached out to him while he remained unsigned, telling him, 'we want to bring you in, but it's getting shut down above us.' In his upcoming memoir, 'The Perilous Fight,' he writes that then-Ravens head coach John Harbaugh was among those he spoke with in 2017. Harbaugh's brother, Jim, was Kaepernick's head coach in San Francisco.
In October 2017, Kaepernick filed a grievance against the NFL, alleging that owners were colluding to keep him out of the league. He and his former teammate Eric Reid, who also knelt, settled their collusion grievance on February 15, 2019, receiving less than $10 million total. Reid was playing for the Carolina Panthers at the time. NBC News reported that a player within the league said in 2016, 'Everybody believes that he was blackballed.'
The NFL has consistently denied blackballing Kaepernick. In 2020, Commissioner Roger Goodell told NBC, 'Those are decisions that each individual owner has to make and their clubs, coaches, GMs. And I've talked to a lot of our clubs about it and I've encouraged them. I'd love to see him play again.'
In November 2019, the NFL attempted to arrange a workout for Kaepernick, but he called it off over a waiver he believed would sign away his employment rights and potential future claims against the league. Instead, he organized his own workout at a high school field in Riverdale, Georgia, where seven teams sent representatives: the Kansas City Chiefs, New York Jets, Philadelphia Eagles, Tennessee Titans, 49ers, then-Washington Redskins, and Detroit Lions. He never signed with a team. In 2022, the Las Vegas Raiders brought him in for a workout, which NFL legend Warren Sapp described as a 'disaster' and 'one of the worst workouts ever.'
Kaepernick, now 38, said the NFL's efforts on social justice, including millions in donations to the Inspire Change fund, expanding the Rooney Rule, and working with the Players Coalition, have not 'materially changed' the league. 'None of their actions show that,' he told NBC News. 'We have seen it time and time again. For them, it has gone back to business as usual, and I think that is a tragedy that we have allowed them to be able to get to that point.'
The NFL told the outlet, 'The issues Colin and other NFL players raised remain important to the league and deserving of continued attention and action.'