Colin Kaepernick sat during national anthem in first 2 preseason games

Colin Kaepernick found himself in the spotlight after sitting during the national anthem on Friday, but he’s made a habit out of this behavior.

There has been plenty of talk about Colin Kaepernick sitting during the national anthem in the last few hours. Everybody has their own opinion on it, and twitter was full of reactions from players and fans alike.

While the sports world reacts to Kaepernick’s decision to sit out the anthem as a protest to the mistreatment of African-American and minorities, this wasn’t the first time he did this.

According to ESPN’s Adam Schefter, Kaepernick didn’t stand for the national anthem for the 49ers first two preseason games. Schefter notes no one noticed or seemed to care because Kaepernick wasn’t in uniform.

It’s been an ongoing story this season that Kaepernick has almost completely lost his chance at the quarterback job in San Francisco. The fact Kaepernick was sitting on the bench during the game was the story, not that he wasn’t standing for the anthem. Schefter notes that Kaepernick wasn’t in uniform in either of those games, so it’s understandable why people missed him. What’s not understandable, however, is why that suddenly matters.

This tweet means that plenty of people saw Kaepernick out of uniform, sitting down during the anthem. There’s no way 50,000 people completely missed it. They all saw this and did not care. There was not a single story about a 49ers player out of uniform sitting on the bench during the anthem. This only became a story when Kaepernick was in uniform and therefore, a lightning rod for controversy.

Kaepernick has his opinions about anthem and he is within his rights to stand or not stand as the NFL and the 49ers stated as much. Others have their opinions about anthem and Kaepernick’s choices and that’s just fine too. However, if you’re suddenly outraged about something you didn’t even realize was going on for several weeks before you noticed it, maybe you’re outraged at the wrong thing.

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The fact nobody noticed this proves nobody was vigilantly looking, which means they really didn’t care. It mattered to precisely no one until Kaepernick voiced an opinion that some people disagree with. For some reason, we expect athletes to not have opinions on social situations—we expect them to not be human. It’s an impossible expectation. “Just shut up and play football,” says the populace – but Kaepernick is a human with a right to his opinion.

In the end, this should have always been a non-story. Kaep does what Kaep does, and we move on. If nothing else—maybe we should just shut up and watch football.