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Key moments in Kaepernick's protests during the national anthem and the league's response.

Colin Kaepernick at a workout for N.F.L. teams. Credit... Carmen Mandato/Getty Images

UPDATE: This article was updated November 20. When Colin Kaepernick sat during the national anthem at an N.F.L. preseason game in 2016, it began a controversy that would involve dozens of players and owners, athletes in other sports and politicians, including the president of the United States.

"I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color," he tells NFL Media.

Kaepernick's act draws praise and criticism. Drew Brees, the quarterback of the New Orleans Saints, tells ESPN: "He can speak out about a very important issue. But there's plenty of other ways that you can do that in a peaceful manner that doesn't involve being disrespectful to the American flag."\

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Colin Kaepernick kneeling during the national anthem on Sept. 1, 2016. Credit... Chris Carlson/Associated Press

Kaepernick is booed throughout the game by the home Chargers fans.

President Barack Obama defends Kaepernick, saying, "I think he cares about some real, legitimate issues that have to be talked about."

Megan Rapinoe, the national team soccer player, knelt during the national anthem before a game between the United States and the Netherlands on Sept. 18, 2016. Credit... Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images

Members of the Miami Dolphins knelt during the anthem before a game against the New England Patriots in 2016. Credit... Maddie Meyer/Getty Images

Kaepernick protests throughout the N.F.L. season. He winds up starting 11 games, and the 49ers finish 2-14. Though the team is bad, Kaepernick's adjusted yards per pass figure is a respectable 7.2. He has not played since.

Many suggest Kaepernick is being blackballed.

The preseason begins with Kaepernick still unsigned. Anthem protests continue, in part prompted by deadly violence in Charlottesville, Va. "The national anthem is a special moment to me," Goodell says. "It's a point of pride. That is a really important moment. But we also have to understand the other side that people do have rights and we want to respect those."

N.F.L. owners rule that players can no longer kneel during the national anthem without leaving themselves open to punishment. But the league also says athletes can stay in the locker room while it is being performed.

In July, the union files a grievance over the policy.

A handful of players protests as the preseason begins, drawing more condemnation from Trump.

People walked by a Nike advertisement featuring Colin Kaepernick in New York in September. Credit... Mark Lennihan/Associated Press

During the Super Bowl, Kaepernick posts on his social media accounts images of athletes and celebrities wearing #imwithkap jerseys supporting his cause.

The N.F.L. reaches settlements with Kaepernick and Reid in their grievance cases. Terms of the settlements are not disclosed, and the players and the league reach a confidentiality agreement.

Colin Kaepernick worked out for N.F.L. scouts. Credit... Elijah Nouvelage/Reuters

After friction over what teams would attend, whether the news media would be admitted and what waivers would need to be signed, Kaepernick moves the workout to a high school an hour away. Eight N.F.L. scouts are on hand. No job offers are immediately forthcoming.

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A Timeline of Colin Kaepernick vs. the N.F.L.

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Key moments in Kaepernick's protests during the national anthem and the league's response. UPDATE: This article was updated November 20. When Colin Kaepernick sat during the national anthem at an N.F.L. preseason game in 2016, it began a controversy that would involve dozens of players and owners, athletes in other sports and politicians, including the president of the United States.

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The former Super Bowl starting quarterback's decision to go public comes while he is fighting for his football life with the 49ers, who drafted him in the second round in 2011. He lost his starting job last season after being one of the most promising players in the NFL during his run under former coach Jim Harbaugh.

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Colin Kaepernick explains why he sat during national anthem

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The former Super Bowl starting quarterback's decision to go public comes while he is fighting for his football life with the 49ers, who drafted him in the second round in 2011. He lost his starting job last season after being one of the most promising players in the NFL during his run under former coach Jim Harbaugh.

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Apparently San Francisco Forty-Niners quarterback Colin Kaepernick will not be standing for the national anthem anytime soon. "When there's significant change and I feel like that flag represents what it's supposed to represent, this country is representing people the way that it's supposed to, I'll stand."

There are a lot of ways a professional athlete can speak his mind or protest. Most obviously, a starting quarterback in the National Football League has constant access to the media, with reporters who hanging on their every word. Kaepernick did exactly that today:

"There's a lot of things that need to change. One specifically? Police brutality," said Kaepernick, who is biracial and whose adoptive parents are white. "There's people being murdered unjustly and not being held accountable. People are being given paid leave for killing people. That's not right. That's not right by anyone's standards."

If he had just said that, few fans would be angry with him. But Kaepernick's gesture, refusing to stand for the national anthem, is not subtle, nuanced or conditional. By not standing, the quarterback is not saying I'm angry at that cop, or that police force, or that prosecutor's decision. He's saying, I'm angry at all of America. Make no mistake, Kaepernick indicts all of America over what troubles him.

Kaepernick seems to be misinterpreting what everyone else is doing when they stand for the national anthem. Does he think everyone else stands because they think America is perfect? Does he think holding his hand over his heart represents a de facto approval of police brutality? Does he think all of his teammates and coaches and everyone else standing chooses to turn a blind eye to these problems?

Colin Kaepernick is just about the worst possible person to run around indicting America for its failures. Put aside the fact that an opposing player accused Kaepernick of using the N-word while during a heated exchange in a game in 2014. We can put aside the eye-popping specifics of his contract - $114 million contract with the San Francisco 49ers, including a $12 million signing bonus, $61 million guaranteed, and an average annual salary of $19 million.

If you are gifted athletically in the United States of America in the twenty-first century, you have a good chance to live a life more blessed than 99 percent or so of your fellow citizens, never mind the rest of the world. Partial or full college scholarships, lucrative contracts, even more lucrative endorsement deals, fame, groupies, post-playing media gigs. Yes, professional athletes live in the spotlight and must live with press scrutiny, but they have been quite a few cases where professional athletes received lenient or favorable treatment from law enforcement and the judicial system. Yes, professional athletes get booed, but if they succeed, they will hear tens of thousands of people cheering and chanting their name. There are successful doctors and teachers and inventors who will never hear that.

America has been really generous to Colin Kaepernick, and he makes a particularly insufferable figure to offer a blanket condemnation of the country.

Jim Geraghty is the senior political correspondent of National Review. @jimgeraghty

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Colin Kaepernick's Insufferable Blanket Indictment of America | National Review

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Apparently San Francisco Forty-Niners quarterback Colin Kaepernick will not be standing for the national anthem anytime soon. "When there's significant change and I feel like that flag represents what it's supposed to represent, this country is representing people the way that it's supposed to, I'll stand."

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How Conservatives Weaponized the First Amendment (Published 2018)

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Borrowing arguments that were once the province of liberals, conservatives have used the First Amendment to justify everything from campaign spending to attacks on the regulation of tobacco and guns.

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After an initial backlash and a flurry of bad press, it appears that San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick's symbolic protest during "The Star-Spangled Banner" is really catching on.

Kaepernick has been deliberately not standing at NFL games during the national anthem of the United States because of the history of racial oppression in the country, and more specifically the recent spate of unarmed black men killed under suspicious circumstances.

During the NFL's first weekend of regular season games-and ironically on the 15th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001-a number of players demonstrated solidarity with the 49ers star through silent demonstrations while the song was played:

After days of speculation that the entire Seattle Seahawks squad would sit out the national anthem, all 53 members of the team and their coach Pete Carroll linked arms in a display of unity during the song.

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To express a desire to bring people together, our team will honor the country and flag in a pregame demonstration of unity.
- Doug Baldwin Jr (@DougBaldwinJr) September 8, 2016

"I spoke with the players, and they realize that 9/11 is a very important day in our nation's history. The Seahawks, and probably every team, will be honoring those who serve in camouflage and also those in blue who served on such a difficult day," Nate Boyer, a former Green Beret who had a short stint with the Seahawks as an undrafted free agent last season, told Fox Sports Radio.

"Shortly after 9/11, our country seemed more unified than I had ever experienced and was the most unified it has been since I have been alive. Since that date, we have grown farther apart in our unity," Boyer said. "Standing together this Sunday is key to making progress. What the team will do is a powerful sign of unification."

"It has to be a team-first approach in order to get anything done," he added. "Whether it is Kaepernick's mission-changing policy or changing things on the field, you have to be unified."

Even though the Seahawks' demonstration has received widespread praise, not everyone was pleased with the increasing outspokenness of NFL stars.

"Dear @NFL Any player wants to boycott the anthem on 9/11 should be asked to remain in the locker room until kick off. It's not their moment," wrote actor Rob Lowe on Twitter.

Supermodel Kate Upton went even further, calling NFL player protests on the 9/11 anniversary "horrific" in a lengthy Instagram post. "Sitting or kneeling down during the national anthem is a disgrace to those people who have served and currently serve our country," Upton wrote.

"Protest all you want and use social media all you want. However, during the nearly two minutes when that song is playing, I believe everyone should put their hands on their heart and be proud of our country for we are all truly blessed," she added, before citing the election of Barack Obama as the first African-American U.S. president as proof that the country has turned a corner on race.

After receiving considerable pushback on social media, Upton conceded that the justice system is "corrupt."

Meanwhile, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, who is infamous for weighing in on sports matters, made his displeasure with the weekend's activities known during a "Fox and Friends" call-in appearance early on Monday.

"I think it's a lack of respect for our country. I think it's a lack of appreciation for our country and it's a very sad thing. I've never seen anything quite like it actually," Trump said.
Related: Colin Kaepernick's Protest is Part of Long Sports Tradition
Trump went on to repeat his past suggestion that Kaepernick and like-minded football stars "should try another country, see if they like it better."

"See if they'll make 20 million dollars a year for being the second string quarterback," the Republican presidential nominee added in a direct dig at Kaepernick's diminished status on the football field.

As for the official franchises and the league itself, the leadership of the NFL has walked a much more egalitarian line when it comes to the political protests of players.

For instance, in an official statement, the Miami Dolphins said that while they encourage members of their organization to stand during the anthem, they also "recognize that it's an individual's right to reflect during the anthem in different ways."

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, no stranger to controversy himself, has said that while he doesn't necessarily support the statements and protests of Kaepernick and company personally, he is pleased that the league has been able to accommodate their freedom of speech.

"We play a role in society, an important role in society. We understand that," Goodell told NBC's Matt Lauer last week prior to the games on Sunday. "We're careful about that because we still believe that at the bottom people come to enjoy the sport, they come to enjoy the game. But they recognize the importance that the NFL plays in our society. And we all have to be responsible for that."

"We encourage our players to be respectful," Goodell added. "But they also have rights and we have to respect that."

However, outside the NFL, athletes may not enjoy the same protections that professionals enjoy. Rodney Axson, a 16-year-old high school football player from Ohio, has reportedly been subjected to racial slurs and threats because he chose to take a knee during the anthem as an homage to Kaepernick.

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Kaepernick national anthem protest catches on in NFL

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After an initial backlash and a flurry of bad press, it appears that San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick's symbolic protest during "The Star-Spangled Banner" is really catching on. Kaepernick has been deliberately not standing at NFL games during the national anthem of the United States because of the history of racial oppression in the country, and more specifically the recent spate of unarmed black men killed under suspicious circumstances.

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Is This Okay? * Colin Kaepernick Kneels During The National Anthem To Spark Conversation

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"We live in a country where there's freedom of expression."