NFL won’t make amends with Colin Kaepernick, but he gains ground anyway

Bears star Akiem Hicks floated ways the league could make things right with Kaepernick. That won’t happen, but the blackballed quarterback’s movement is succeeding nonetheless, as other players feel more free to speak out.

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Kaepernick at a 2016 game against the Bears in Chicago.

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Amid a half-hour of insight into the intersection of America’s racial unrest and the NFL, Bears defensive lineman Akiem Hicks raised the idealistic notion that the league should make things right with exiled quarterback Colin Kaepernick. It’s noble and logical, but it’s not going to happen.

Hicks suggested that a team should sign Kaepernick or that the NFL should hire him to a meaningful position to address social-justice issues. Those are great ideas that are sure to die on the vine.

We’ve seen enough quarterback-desperate teams, including the Bears, turn Kaepernick away to know his playing days are done. We also have seen enough from owners — as well as the influence President Donald Trump has with them — to know there sooner will be an expansion team on the moon than Kaepernick getting an office at NFL headquarters.

But Kaepernick gained ground this week nonetheless. While he lost his career for taking a stand, it looks increasingly unlikely other players will pay the same price for speaking out.

‘‘It was the reality,’’ Hicks said. ‘‘And hopefully it won’t be going forward.’’

Hicks has good reason to be optimistic on that front.

The wind seems to have changed direction. Saints quarterback Drew Brees learned that the hard way when he encountered roaring blowback for his lack of empathy for the message black players present while kneeling during the national anthem.

The space for anything but support for social justice is shrinking — in society and in the NFL. That’s good. We need to head off prejudice and division at every turn, leaving no room for it in our personal spheres. Along those lines, it’s becoming less acceptable and less comfortable to stand against the movement Kaepernick started.

It’s not political correctness; it’s simply correctness. There’s nothing political about protesting police brutality and racial inequality.

As Hicks thought back to Kaepernick kneeling, his mind quickly went to how few in the NFL rallied behind him. It sounded as though he wanted to do more but was worried it would cost him his career.

‘‘In talking to a lot of players across the league, there are several guys who . . . wish they would have done something different at the time,’’ Hicks said. ‘‘They wish they would have been more supportive.

‘‘And for fear — whether it was their job or fear of blackballing themselves, as that did happen to Kaepernick — a lot of people didn’t stand up with him, myself included.’’

It doesn’t seem as though Hicks will factor that into his thinking anymore, and it looks like a more favorable climate for him to exercise his freedom of expression. Would any owner, general manager or coach dare try to silence a player, as some did in 2016 and 2017? Or as the league did in a shady, backroom vote in 2018?

Good luck with that now.

And that’s where Kaepernick will see some good come from his plight. He cut a path for others to speak freely with less concern about consequences.

Two years ago, Dolphins receiver Kenny Stills thought he was headed toward the same fate as Kaepernick because he kneels during the anthem. He predicted he would be similarly blackballed once he hit free agency, which will be after this season.

He might end up being correct, but it’s far less of a certainty than it must have seemed to him at the time. Stills is 28, and he probably will find a home for 2021 if he continues to be productive.

Stills hasn’t backed down since the 2016 opener. He pressed on, even when the Dolphins ordered players to stay in the locker room if they wanted to kneel.

It was no surprise recently, then, when Stills bristled at commissioner Roger Goodell’s statement expressing condolences to George Floyd’s family and reiterating the NFL’s commitment to furthering social justice.

‘‘Save the [expletive],’’ Stills replied to the tweet from the NFL’s account, without fear of repercussion.

His rationale, presumably, is that there’s a contradiction between that statement and the message the league sent by shunning Kaepernick. And by trying to snuff out peaceful demonstrations during the anthem. And by having only three black head coaches and two black GMs among 32 teams in a league in which roughly 70 percent of the players are black.

Stills has been working toward social justice for years and never has felt the league was an ally.

‘‘I just feel like, from the beginning, if the narrative would’ve been set one way and the league would’ve had our backs and really put the message out there the right way and tried to educate people on the work that we’re doing and why we’re doing it, we might be in a different place,’’ Stills said in 2018.

Now it’s becoming untenable to do anything other than have their backs.

Goodell released a video Friday admitting the NFL was ‘‘wrong for not listening to NFL players earlier.’’ It would have been a good time for him to mention Kaepernick by name, but it’s still evidence there’s only one valid side of the argument.

As for kneeling, it hasn’t been as much of a topic for the Bears as it has for other teams, but it might be soon. Kneeling is only a symbol, but it’s a meaningful one.

Coach Matt Nagy tried to kick the issue down the road a few months when pressed about what his policy would be for player demonstrations this season. He was optimistic his players would agree to do something in unison, but it’s nearly impossible to get a unanimous vote in any room of 53 people.

It’ll be impossible to talk around it if some want to kneel and others don’t. Nagy will have to declare support or disapproval, as will GM Ryan Pace and chairman George McCaskey. There’s no neutral ground.

That’ll go for Goodell and the owners, too. If players kneel or otherwise demonstrate, will Goodell and the owners do as Stills said and come alongside them? Will they defend players when Trump inevitably launches a barrage of tweets their way? Will Goodell back the players, even if there’s a financial cost in doing so?

The NFL didn’t do that for Kaepernick. But his movement leaves little room for the league to repeat that failure.

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