Kaepernick recently told NBC that the NFL is “actively blackballing” him, renewing an allegation that has followed his post-football career for years.
He also took aim at NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell’s response to the racial protests that swept the country in 2020.
Kaepernick described Goodell’s public apology as “so laughable” and “so disingenuous.”
He similarly dismissed the league’s prominent “End Racism” messaging as “a great marketing campaign.”
Those remarks come after years in which the NFL has dramatically changed its public posture on racial and social issues.
Kaepernick’s protest began during the 2016 preseason, when he initially remained seated during the national anthem. After discussing the matter with former Green Beret Nate Boyer, Kaepernick and teammate Eric Reid shifted to kneeling during the anthem.
The protest quickly became a national flashpoint.
Supporters argued Kaepernick was using his platform to draw attention to police brutality and racial inequality. Critics countered that refusing to stand for the anthem was disrespectful to the country, the flag and Americans who served in uniform.
What began with one quarterback soon became a league-wide political controversy.
By 2020, Goodell publicly embraced the Black Lives Matter movement and acknowledged that the NFL had been wrong for failing to listen to players protesting racial injustice.
The league also committed hundreds of millions of dollars to social-justice initiatives through its Inspire Change program and incorporated slogans into games, uniforms, helmets and stadium signage.
For many longtime football fans, the transformation was unmistakable. A league once largely reluctant to wade directly into America’s cultural battles increasingly made political and social messaging part of its public identity.
Yet Kaepernick now argues those changes were inadequate and insincere.
His criticism also revives the unresolved debate over why he never returned to an NFL roster.
Kaepernick played his final game for San Francisco on January 1, 2017. He subsequently opted out of his contract and entered free agency.
At the time, his football career was already on shaky ground. He had gone from leading the 49ers to a Super Bowl appearance earlier in his career to competing with Blaine Gabbert for the starting quarterback job.
No NFL franchise ultimately signed him.
Kaepernick and Reid later filed grievances alleging that NFL teams had colluded to deny them employment because of their protests. The dispute ended in a confidential settlement in 2019 rather than a public ruling establishing that the league had conspired against them.
That distinction remains important.
Kaepernick’s supporters have long argued that his continued absence from NFL rosters could not be explained solely by football considerations. His critics maintain that teams were making a straightforward business calculation involving performance, salary expectations and the extraordinary media attention that would accompany signing him.
Kaepernick nevertheless continued training and periodically expressed interest in returning to professional football.
That created an unusual dynamic: He remained one of the NFL’s most outspoken critics while simultaneously seeking another opportunity from an NFL franchise.
Now, with a new book arriving, Kaepernick is again making the league central to his public message.
In the memoir, he reportedly describes the NFL as “a mirror of American capitalism, of racial exploitation, of a country that celebrated black entertainment and criminalized black lives in the same breath.”
That is a remarkable indictment of an institution that helped make Kaepernick one of the most recognizable athletes in America.
His activism also opened doors far beyond football.
Kaepernick became the face of a major Nike advertising campaign and developed projects in publishing and entertainment while building a lucrative public identity around activism.
Meanwhile, the NFL moved considerably closer to the cultural position Kaepernick championed in 2016.
Social-justice campaigns became institutionalized. Players were encouraged to promote causes. League messaging increasingly emphasized racial equality and community activism.
And still, nearly ten years after the anthem controversy began, Kaepernick says the NFL’s response wasn’t genuine.
There is an obvious political and commercial tension in that story.
Kaepernick argues that the league exploited Black athletes while refusing to adequately confront racial injustice. His critics see something very different: a former quarterback who turned his clash with the NFL into a second career and is now reopening that grievance as he promotes another commercial project.
Either way, the controversy that began on a San Francisco sideline in 2016 clearly isn’t finished.
Kaepernick hasn’t taken an NFL snap in almost a decade, but his fight with professional football remains central to his public identity.
And with The Perilous Fight about to hit shelves, one of America’s most polarizing former athletes is once again making sure the argument follows him into the spotlight.
