{"id":880063,"date":"2026-09-02T00:06:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-02T00:06:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/880063\/"},"modified":"2026-09-02T00:06:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T00:06:09","slug":"colin-kaepernick-says-he-now-shuns-nfl-for-blackballing-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/880063\/","title":{"rendered":"Colin Kaepernick says he now shuns NFL for &#8216;blackballing me&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph\">NEW YORK &#8212; Colin Kaepernick still watches football.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Just not the NFL.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The former San Francisco 49ers quarterback told NBC News in an interview that he prefers to watch the college game instead.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The 38-year-old Kaepernick, who led the 49ers to a Super Bowl after the 2012 season, hasn&#8217;t played since the 2016 season finale, an exile that began not long after he started taking a knee during the national anthem to highlight social injustices.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">&#8220;I&#8217;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,&#8221; Kaepernick said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Kaepernick and former teammate Eric Reid, who knelt alongside Kaepernick, sued the NFL citing collusion. The two sides settled in early 2019.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">During a hiatus that eventually became a retirement, Kaepernick has stayed busy. His &#8220;Know Your Rights&#8221; camps are designed to educate young people, and his foundation helps pay for independent autopsies, including recently for Mississippi teenager Nolan Wells.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Asked by the network if he thinks about his legacy at all, Kaepernick said it doesn&#8217;t cross his mind.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">&#8220;What I think about is what are the areas that I can do work that I think are going to have an impact and help us move towards that future together,&#8221; he said. &#8220;At the end of the day, people will decide what that legacy is, and hopefully that&#8217;s a positive one.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK &#8212; Colin Kaepernick still watches football. Just not the NFL. The former San Francisco 49ers quarterback&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":880064,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[436],"tags":[49,48,514,82],"class_list":["post-880063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=880063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880063\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/880064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=880063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=880063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=880063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}