The Atlantic

The NFL Is Making Colin Kaepernick’s Collusion Case for Him

As weeks pass and league-wide quarterback play worsens, the athlete-turned-activist’s continued absence on Sundays is becoming impossible to rationalize.
Source: D. Ross Cameron / AP

On October 15, Colin Kaepernick filed a grievance against the National Football League. It alleged that team owners had colluded to keep him out of uniform, not because of his athletic performance, but because of his decision to protest acts of police brutality and racial injustice by kneeling during the national anthem. The move gave official procedure to a politically infused conflict that had been contested, to that point, through the media, and that had long since taken its place in the broader culture war.

Mark Geragos, the lawyer representing Kaepernick, at the time, “If the NFL (as well as all professional sports leagues) is to remain a meritocracy, then principled and

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