To say Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Aaron Rodgers is a little outspoken would be like saying the Chernobyl disaster was a minor inconvenience. The four-time MVP isn't afraid to share his opinions, and he let loose in the most recent episode of Not Just Football with Cam Heyward.
The episode wasted no time getting into Rodgers' thoughts on why he believes he's so polarizing, to which he called out "hypocrisy" in the media.
"Everybody loved hearing my takes on Colin Kaepernick when I said he was one of the top 64 quarterbacks in the league," Rodgers said. "They loved my takes when there was a shooting that occurred years and years ago during Obama's presidency. Somebody yelled out some anti-muslim rhetoric during the moment of silence, which I thought was so disrespectful. And I said after the game, the first thing I said was, 'There's no place for that kind of hate in this world. Regardless of what happened [or] what you think happened.'… I said something about that and President Obama sent me a hand-written note afterward. And everybody loved that part. They enjoyed my takes. Mina Kimes had me to her house for a feature I did. All of these people were my friends in the media. Until I came about against COVID."
It's not exactly disputable that Rodgers gets no benefit of the doubt from the media after being a genuine media favorite for a long time. To tie it back to his vaccination status is probably pretty on point.
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#Media #years #think

Ten years after he first took a knee to protest US police brutality, Colin Kaepernick said he is still being blackballed by the NFL and no longer watches the "disingenuous" league.
In a rare interview, the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback said the NFL's statements condemning racial injustice after the 2020 death of George Floyd had been "laughable," and that the league has not changed.
"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," said Kaepernick.
"I watch college football," he told NBC News.
Despite leading them to the Super Bowl game in February 2013, Kaepernick was released by the 49ers in 2017 -- a year after his kneeling protest began -- and has not played for an NFL team since.

#league #francisco

Colin Kaepernick claimed in a new interview that the NFL is still 'actively blackballing' him, 10 years since his #TakeAKnee movement in 2016
The former quarterback said he has not watched an NFL game since he was exiled from the league
Kaepernick is releasing a memoir called "The Perilous Fight" on Sept. 15
Colin Kaepernick is reflecting on the 10 years since he was exiled from the NFL.
In a new interview with NBC News on Tuesday, Sept. 1, Kaepernick, 38, claimed the league is still "actively blackballing" him a decade after he first knelt during the national anthem in protest of police brutality and racial injustice.

#kaepernick #colin #actively #years

The NFL will continue displaying anti-racism and social justice messages on fields and player helmets during the 2026 season, a decade after Colin Kaepernick first protested during the national anthem.
An NFL spokesperson confirmed to Front Office Sports that the league will continue using end-zone stencils and helmet decals this season, marking the seventh consecutive year of the initiative.
"Can confirm that we are continuing with both the end zone stencils and helmet decals this season," the spokesperson told Front Office Sports.
NFL teams have displayed social justice messages in their end zones since 2020, when protests spread across the country following the killing of George Floyd. During the 2025 season, teams could choose from messages including "End Racism," "Choose Love," "Stop Hate" and "Inspire Change."
The NFL's broader social justice efforts have included its Inspire Change program and performances of "Lift Every Voice and Sing" at major league events.

#messages #change

The lawsuit filed by Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores against the NFL and various teams has finally moved forward (as to several of the pending claims) to the discovery process. Which gives Flores's lawyers a certain degree of latitude to seek information that could help prove one or more of his claims.
As noted by Daniel Kaplan, Flores has asked the NFL to produce documents relating to the Jon Gruden and Colin Kaepernick cases. The NFL is resisting.
"Requests concerning Colin Kaepernick and Jon Gruden, along with other requests raised by Flores at the August 14 conference, are likewise not relevant or discoverable," the NFL's outside counsel wrote to the court, per Kaplan.
On the surface, there's no connection to the Flores cases. To the extent, however, that his claim against the Texans arises from the argument that he wasn't hired to coach the team in retaliation for his recent filing of a race discrimination lawsuit against the NFL, the Dolphins, the Giants, and the Broncos, the Kaepernick case becomes arguably relevant.
Like Kaepernick, Flores claims he was essentially blackballed via collusion of the franchises. While Flores has found employment as an ******* istant with the Steelers and Vikings, Flores has consistently been overlooked for head-coaching jobs.

#flores #claims #colin #lawsuit

Invoking a wounded innocence that their desire for sports to be simple, just like they used to be, conservatives for a decade and a half have dreaded the word "politics". Now they cannot get enough.
Philadelphia Eagles defensive coordinator Vic Fangio has spent 40 years in the National Football League unknown except for his defensive schemes, but last week opened his press remarks mocking the congressional testimony of Dr Anthony Fauci, jokingly invoking the Fifth Amendment before taking questions. Apropos of nothing, President Trump publicly surmised that LeBron James might be a racist. Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham is now in the act, accepting the role as the right's anti-Black, anti-transgender culture war ambassador, the role originally intended for Caitlin Clark.
If Clark has lacked the courage and dexterity to say anything beyond the milky and ambiguous, Sophie Cunningham does not suffer from such internal conflicts. Largely anonymous politically or otherwise during her eight-year career, Cunningham – she of the viral finger-point which has been adopted as a symbol of the white animosity toward the WNBA culture – is in her moment. Her comments in a lengthy 21 July ESPN profile stating her opposition to transgender athletes has earned her hero status of the specious "Protect Our Girls" movement, even though you'd need a microscope to find any critical mass of transgender women participating in sports at any level.
Cunningham plays role of the blithe and bubbly iconoclast, oblivious to the world around as she unapologetically speaks her truths, but she is every bit as political as Colin Kaepernick, Megan Rapinoe, or her locked-armed, T-shirt wearing colleagues that defined the WNBA when she first entered the league in 2019. Cunningham forged a tough, take-no-prisoners-without-taking-herself-too-seriously persona, but was too meek to address the toxic roots of her newfound fame.
So too, was ESPN, which waited nearly 75 paragraphs just to sidestep the foundation of Cunningham's rise: she is profiting from cultural fractures that may be good for her but are tearing her league apart:

#cunningham #WNBA #invoking #sports

San Francisco 49ers star pass rusher Nick Bosa isn't known for his social media. He distanced himself from Twitter since his first season as a pro.
Since then, Bosa has had several retweets. He shared former teammate De'Vondre Campbell's post about the NFL needing to do away with turf fields. In between that, there's a Joe Rogan podcast retweet as well as a George Kittle one. But on Thursday, Bosa took the time to quote a tweet where ESPN cut ties with former NFL player Ryan Clark:
Instantly, the internet came out in droves to attack Bosa, calling him a racist and saying that he hates black people.
Part of the reason Bosa has distanced himself from Twitter was some pre-draft tweets he had. In August of 2016, he had a tweet calling former 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick a clown.
That was one of many deleted tweets that would've been viewed as controversial. During Bosa's first press conference, he apologized, saying, "It wasn't directed towards (Kaepernicks' stance. It's not like I'm saying his stance and what he was doing; that's not what I was calling or talking about at all. It was just a specific thing that happened and me as a young kid a thought popping in my head and boom, decided to tweet it out. Bad decision. I respect what he's done. If it empowers anybody, then he's doing a good thing. So I apologize for that."

#saying #twitter #first

When 18-year-old Nolan Wells of Mississippi turned up missing, then dead, several black activists jumped into action, including Colin Kaepernick.
Wells was reported missing when he went on a boat last Saturday with his friends, never returned, and was later found dead. Wells' parents didn't trust Mississippi authorities to do the teenager's autopsy, so Kaepernick stepped in with his organization to do an independent autopsy.
That's just one of the things that Kaepernick has done since his NFL career ended. When Kaepernick took a knee in protest against racism, it ended his career. He tried for many years to reenter the league, but several teams were afraid to take a chance on him because they didn't want the controversy that followed him.
Turns out, that may have been the best thing to happen to the former NFL star. He has been more powerful off the field than on it. His activism has prompted others to take a stand on issues after he was effectively banned from the league.
His activism hasn't come with much bravado; it's been done quietly, as in this situation with Wells. He has a foundation called Know Your Rights Camp. Part of his foundation has an initiative called the Autopsy Initiative, whose goal is to provide grieving families with accurate, transparent, and forensically correct information regarding the cause of death of a loved one.