Colin Kaepernick said it has been 889 days that he’s been “denied work” and locked out of the NFL. But he wanted to prove that he hasn’t lost his fitness or focus.
On Wednesday The 31-year-old posted that number in an Instagram video that showed him doing a series of intense workouts, which included weights and calisthenics.
“Five a.m., five days a week, for three years, still ready,” he said in the clip.
It appears that Kaepernick is letting NFL teams know that he can put on his shoulder pads and be ready to resume his quarterback duties whenever called.
The football star turned activist hasn’t played a game since 2016 after he began kneeling during the national anthem to protest racial injustice in the U.S. against black people.
Kaepernick, as well as his former San Francisco 49ers teammate Eric Reid, who also kneeled, filed a collusion case in 2017 and accused the league of locking them out.
They settled that case earlier this year for an amount that was said to be less than $10 million for both of them to split.
In July, Reid, who now plays for the Carolina Panthers, said he will continue to kneel during the “The Star-Spangled Banner” and will do so until Black people “aren’t being discriminated against or being killed over traffic violations.” It was a statement that Kaepernick praised him for.
Kap’s video, meanwhile, was viewed nearly 230,000 times in just five hours, and the comments kept coming in.
“⌚️=💵. Couldn’t stop your money so they tried to 🛑 your passion. Little did they know you had more than ☝🏽. #therealmvp,” wrote one supporter.
Others said they couldn’t believe Kaepernick still wasn’t picked up by an NFL team, based on the video.
“@nfl as you can see what is going on in this country you are doing more to add to it,” a second person wrote. “Denying this man a job shows that you play a part of the separation and racism of this country.”
