Colin Kaepernick Says He Won’t Watch the NFL—10 Years After Taking a Knee, He Says the League Is Still Blackballing Him

Ten years after Colin Kaepernick first took a knee during the national anthem, he says he still will not watch the league where he became a Super Bowl quarterback.

In a new interview published around the September 1 anniversary of his protest, Kaepernick said he prefers college football because he believes the NFL is “actively blackballing me” and has targeted other players who protested racial injustice.

The statement revives one of the most consequential disputes in modern American sports: whether Kaepernick’s absence from the NFL resulted from ordinary football decisions or from a league-wide response to his activism. His description is an allegation; the NFL has repeatedly denied that its teams colluded to keep him out.

Kaepernick says he stopped watching the NFL

Kaepernick, now 38, told NBC News that he continues to watch football—but not NFL games. “I watch college football,” he said, according to reports from Reuters and ABC7/ESPN.

He has not played in the league since the final game of the 2016 season. That absence is striking because his résumé included leading the San Francisco 49ers to Super Bowl XLVII after the 2012 season and another NFC championship game the following year.

Kaepernick and former teammate Eric Reid later filed grievances accusing NFL owners of colluding to deny them employment because of their protests. The cases ended in a confidential settlement in 2019. Kaepernick continued training and worked out for the Las Vegas Raiders in 2022, but no contract followed.

The anniversary gives the interview added weight

Kaepernick’s protest first drew national attention when he sat during the anthem at a preseason game in August 2016. After speaking with former Green Beret and NFL player Nate Boyer, he changed the gesture to kneeling—an action intended to protest police violence and racial inequality while showing greater respect for military service members.

On September 1, 2016, Kaepernick and Reid knelt together before a preseason game between San Francisco and the then-San Diego Chargers. A photograph from that night is now held by the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture.

The protest quickly became larger than football. Supporters viewed it as a peaceful demand that the country confront unequal policing. Critics argued that kneeling during the anthem disrespected the flag, the military or the country. Kaepernick consistently said his focus was injustice—not opposition to service members.

The NFL dispute never fully disappeared

The league’s public posture shifted as national protests expanded following George Floyd’s murder in 2020. Commissioner Roger Goodell said the NFL should have listened earlier to players’ concerns, while maintaining that clubs make their own personnel decisions.

That distinction remains central to the dispute. Kaepernick points to a decade without another NFL appearance despite his prior success and continued efforts to return. The league and its teams have never acknowledged blackballing him.

An Associated Press anniversary review noted that Kaepernick’s 2022 Raiders workout was his last prominent formal opportunity with a team. His latest comments make clear that, from his perspective, the argument is not settled.

A memoir will tell the story in his own words

The interview arrives shortly before the release of Kaepernick’s memoir, The Perilous Fight. Legacy Lit will publish the hardcover and e-book on September 15, 2026, while an audiobook narrated by Kaepernick is scheduled for the same day.

The official book announcement says the memoir will explore his childhood, racial identity, football career and the personal cost of the protest. Publisher Hachette Book Group lists the book at 288 pages.

Kaepernick has remained active through Know Your Rights Camp and other social-justice work. He told NBC that becoming a father has sharpened his sense of responsibility and that he thinks less about controlling his legacy than about doing work that produces an impact.

Why the story still matters

Kaepernick’s new remarks arrive as another NFL season begins, ensuring that the argument surrounding his career will again share space with the games themselves. The passage of a decade has not created a shared verdict about what happened—or what his protest ultimately changed.

What is clear is that a quiet sideline gesture reshaped the relationship among sports, race, patriotism and athlete activism. Ten years later, Kaepernick says he still loves football. He simply chooses to watch it somewhere other than the NFL.

Featured image: An original illustrative scene created for Meeko News. The fictional woman shown is not Kaepernick, an athlete, protester, NFL employee, reporter or witness.