Colin Kaepernick is not on an NFL roster, and despite Jon Gruden saying in March that he believed Kaepernick would be picked up "soon," that now seems very unlikely. Kaep's former San Francisco 49ers teammate and partner in national-anthem protesting, Eric Reid, is also out of the league at the moment.
You have to think other players will give a lot of thought to whether they want to kneel during the national anthem this year—they may believe it's the right thing to do, to use their platform to stand up for a social cause in which they believe, but may also be afraid of losing their livelihood. It's an understandable dilemma. That's why Randy Moss recently critiqued the NFL for making its players "scared" to "really voice their opinions."
Here's what Moss told Jason Reid of The Undefeated:
"Athletes are scared right now. A lot of athletes, most guys, don't want to talk about this. They're terrified for their careers. They're terrified about losing their occupation, which is how they feed their families. Black athletes know they're being treated a certain type of way. Most guys can’t really voice their opinions. They're worried about getting the same type of treatment that Colin Kaepernick got."
Moss recently sported a tie to his Hall of Fame enshrinement that listed the names of 12 black men and women who had been killed by police.
Randy Moss' tie he wore tonight pic.twitter.com/RreQNkkNmZ
In the interview, Moss also spoke on police brutality.
"But we've got to put the attention on the right things. We've got to admit to the problem. Everybody. What if black police officers around the country were going up in these white neighborhoods with rich white kids and started killing them? What would people say about that? What would be the reaction to that? A lot of people just don’t want to really talk about what’s going on. A lot of people don't want to talk about the pain people are feeling out there. There's a badass crisis in our country that's happening every day. And then when you bring it up, when you just try to talk about the truth, you get all this flak."
Read the full piece from The Undefeated here.
