Former NFL outcast and radical activist Colin Kaepernick isn't likely to step onto a pro football playing field this season, if ever again. His name and likeness will, however, make it onto the Nissan Stadium turf in Nashville this Sunday when Tennessee hosts Houston in an AFC game. Titans' wide receiver Rishard Matthews plans to wear cleats bearing the name Colin, a drawing of a kneeling Kaepernick and the words "Know Your Rights."
Know Your Rights is a camp Kaepernick holds to teach young blacks 10 rights. Kaepernick is a former NFL player whose highly controversial social justice warrior ways created a huge public backlash and now no NFL team will touch him with a 39 1/2-foot pole.
The "No Fun League" normally doesn't allow messages to be worn on playing apparel, but this weekend players are being permitted a one-week exemption in order to honor charitable causes. It's called the "My Cleats, My Cause" initiative. How ironic is this? The NFL once forbade the Dallas Cowboys from wearing helmet decals to honor fallen police officers!
Matthews' father and brother both served in the U.S. Marines, and his half-brother Christopher Ruiz died in a 2015 plane crash in Afghanistan. But Matthews says it's Kaepernick who "paid the ultimate sacrifice in order to bring true everyday issues to light." Strange reasoning for sure to elevate Kaepernick over your brother, a true hero. The only pains endured by Kaepernick were the sacks of onrushing linemen and public scorn. Unlike Matthews' late brother, Kaepernick is rich, free and alive. Here's Matthews' Instagram post:
Though Michael Bennett, Eric Reid, Marshawn Lynch and others hogged the attention of protesting NFL players, Matthews did garner notoriety in October. In a message since deleted, he wrote that he would quit football if the NFL required players to stand for the national anthem.
Matthews actually doesn't kneel. He remains in the locker room during the national anthem and maintains that he's protesting President Trump for his remarks that NFL teams should fire the SOBs who kneel during the anthem. Matthews vowed he won't come out of hiding and stand for the Star Spangled Banner until Trump apologizes for those comments.
Matthews' allegiance to Kaepernick is none too surprising. They both played college football at the University of Nevada. Kaepernick's career is most likely over, and Matthews had better tread lightly with his radicalism because he's only under contract through 2018.
Marcus Rivero, of Miami, created the cleats for Matthews, and he told SB Nation, "I know Kaepernick saw it himself. He was really excited and thankful to Rishard for it, so I think [Matthews] got what he wanted out of it.
“He wanted to get a symbol where Kaepernick was on his knee and putting up his fist. I kept it kind of self explanatory. The inside of the shoe says, ‘know your rights’ really big.” The color scheme of the shoes also matches that of the Know Your Rights Camp. The cleats do not include one of Kaepernick's favorite images, police portrayed as pigs.
The Kaepernick cleats will pale in comparison to some of the other causes to be represented this weekend, including the Lupus Foundation of America and American Diabetes Association. Failing once again, media reports on this story largely failed to draw a distinction between the radicalism of Kaeperncik and these worthy causes.
