At least five of the NFL’s most powerful owners will be deposed in relation to Colin Kaepernick’s collusion grievance against the league, ESPN reported on Friday.

Jerry Jones of the Dallas Cowboys, Robert Kraft of the New England Patrots and Bob McNair of the Houston Texans will be subject to depositions and asked to turn over all cellphone records and emails in relation to Kaepernick, ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported.

ABC News reported the owners selected for depositions, which also include the Seattle Seahawks’ Paul Allen and the San Francisco 49ers’ Jed York, were chosen based on their public statements about either Kaepernick or the national anthem protest he launched in September 2015.

Kaepernick, who turned 30 on Friday, has retained attorney Mark Geragos for a grievance that claims NFL owners have colluded to keep him out of the league. Under the league’s collective bargaining agreement teams and the NFL are forbidden from coming together to deprive a player of employment.

Geragos said in a statement issued last month: “If the NFL (as well as all professional sports leagues) is to remain a meritocracy, then principled and peaceful political protest – which the owners themselves made great theater imitating weeks ago – should not be punished and athletes should not be denied employment based on partisan political provocation by the Executive Branch of our government. Such precedent threatens all patriotic Americans and harkens back to our darkest days as a nation.

“Protecting all athletes from such collusive conduct is what compelled Mr Kaepernick to file his grievance.”

Kaepernick completed 59.2% of his passes, averaged 6.8 yards per attempt and threw 16 touchdowns with four interceptions in 12 games for the 49ers last season. But his refusal to stand for the anthem to draw attention to police brutality and racial injustice became a far bigger story than his on-field performance, ultimately making him the target of bellicose rhetoric from US president Donald Trump last month.

Kaepernick has remained jobless even as five teams have lost their first-choice quarterbacks to major injuries this season – among them Green Bay’s Aaron Rodgers, Arizona’s Carson Palmer, Miami’s Ryan Tannehill, Minnesota’s Sam Bradford and most recently Houston’s Deshaun Watson – only adding to the suspicion that he’s been blackballed for his political views.

It will be on Kaepernick’s team to prove that teams communicated with one another and made a collective decision to not sign him, not simply to prove that his performance or social activism has prevented his signing with any one club.