It’s been 10 years since then-49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick took a seat during the playing of the U.S. national anthem.
But a decade after the social justice protest heard around the world, Kaepernick’s presence is still being felt across the NFL—and sports at large.
The NFL will again place anti-racism messages across playing fields and player helmets in 2026, Front Office Sports has learned. It will be the seventh straight season the Shield has been out front on social justice messaging. The strategy dates back to 2020, when the killing of George Floyd by a white police officer ignited a long hot summer of protests and social unrest. “Can confirm that we are continuing with both the end zone stencils and helmet decals this season,” an NFL spokeswoman told FOS in a statement.
Kaepernick has not played a down in the NFL since quarterbacking the 49ers in the final week of the 2016 schedule. But the changes he inspired continue to this day. Among them:
- On-Field Messaging: Over the past six seasons, all 32 NFL teams have stenciled in on-field messages around their end zones. Last year, they chose between four options: “End Racism,” “Choose Love,” “Stop Hate,” and “Inspire Change.” For February’s Super Bowl LX between the Seahawks and Patriots, the league added Dr. Martin Luther King’s “Choose Love” along with “It Takes All Of Us.”
- Helmet Decals: Also starting with the 2020 season, players were allowed to wear helmet decals featuring victims of racial violence, such as Floyd and Breonna Taylor. During the 2025 season, players had the option to wear four decals on their helmets reading: ‘Stop Hate, “Inspire Change, “End Racism,” and “Choose Love.”
- Black National Anthem: Along with the U.S. national anthem, the NFL has added renditions of “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” known as the Black national anthem, before the Super Bowl and other big events. Teams played it before season openers in 2020. Since 2021, some artists who’ve performed the song during the Super Bowl pregame include Alicia Keys and Coco Jones.
- Jay-Z/Roc Nation Alliance: In 2019, Front Office Sports broke the news that Goodell’s NFL was forming a sweeping business alliance with Jay-Z’s Roc Nation. The landmark partnership ultimately gave the rap superstar creative control over the Super Bowl Halftime Show, which sometimes draws more TV viewers than the game itself. This year, the league and Jay-Z faced criticism for casting Bad Bunny as the headliner. The global music sensation sings most of his songs in Spanish. That led the conservative organization Turning Point USA to counter-program with “The All-American Halftime Show” headlined by Kid Rock.
The Kaepernick saga traces back to Aug. 26, 2016, when NFL Network reporter Steve Wyche reported the QB sat silently on the bench during the playing of the anthem before a preseason game against the Packers. When Wyche asked why, Kaepernick said he wouldn’t stand at attention to show pride for the flag of a country that oppresses Black and people of color.
Kaboom: His protest immediately became a cause celebre, dividing both players and fans. Sports radio boards lit up for and against Kaepernick. Some saw the QB as a brave civil rights hero. Others as a “woke” race grifter cynically trying to inject his liberal politics into sports.
Kaepernick’s original sitting protest morphed into silently taking a knee on the field during the playing of “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Other NFL players followed his example. At the height of Kap-mania in 2017, hundreds of NFL players were taking a knee on the field. Even Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, the ultimate capitalist, linked arms with his players and took a knee before a Monday Night Football game in 2017. Athletes from other leagues began taking a knee in solidarity too; most notably international women’s soccer star Megan Rapinoe.
On the other side, President Donald Trump urged NFL owners to dump “son of a bitch” players if they “insulted” the American flag. “Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now. Out! He’s fired. HE’S FIRED,’” thundered Trump at a political rally in 2017. Some NFL fans booed their own players as they took a knee before kickoff.
But the movement didn’t last. By the 2019 season, only a handful of NFL players were still kneeling as the league embraced their position. In 2020, Goodell admitted the NFL was “wrong” for not listening to its players on racism. “We at the National Football League believe Black Lives Matter,” said the commissioner in a video posted to X/Twitter.
As for the now 38-year-old Kaepernick, he last played for the 49ers on Jan. 1, 2017. He’s posted multiple videos of himself working out. But he never got another real shot at playing in the league. The six-year vet sued the NFL in October 2017, alleging team owners colluded to stop him from being signed. Kaepernick and ex-49ers teammate Eric Reid, who knelt alongside him, eventually settled their collusion grievance in February 2019.
The NFL and the sports world move on quickly. For many fans, who don’t remember the explosive debates from a decade ago, Kaepernick is old news.
But here’s the bottom line: Without Kaepernick, the NFL would probably not be stencilling messages on its playing fields or slapping social justice messages on players helmets. Without Kaepernick, the Shield would probably not have given away half a billion dollars to communities in need via its “Inspire Change” initiative. Without Kaepernick, we probably would not have seen Bad Bunny headlining February’s Super Bowl halftime show.
Kaepernick has gone on to become an author, civil rights activist and Nike spokesman. But ultimately his protest cost him what he loved most, according to Jemele Hill, who’s planning a book tour to promote his memoir, “The Perilous Fight.”
“In his case, it was professional football. It was being a football player,” Hill told Awful Announcing. “It’s what he spent his life trying to achieve. And that thing got taken away.”
