Philadelphia Eagles Call Out Shaun King for Spreading False Story About Kaepernick

The Philadelphia Eagles on Thursday called out Black Lives Matter activist Shaun King for an inaccurate tweet that went viral.

King got more than 8,000 retweets for claiming that Philadelphia Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie said he would never hire former 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick for kneeling during the national anthem.

Sportswriters on the Eagles beat immediately pointed out that King was mischaracterizing Lurie's comments, but their complaints fell on deaf ears.

Eventually, the official Eagles Twitter account called out King, and tweeted out the transcript of Lurie's press conference.

The transcript and video of the press conference both show that Lurie never said he would not sign Kaepernick for his protest. He simply said that the Eagles were "completely happy with our quarterback situation."

Lurie suggested that if that ever changed, the team would fully evaluate Kaepernick.

"With [former Eagles quarterback] Michael Vick, there was a complete vetting of: ‘How is he as a teammate? What is his character? What is his potential? What is his football intelligence? Can he be a backup?'" he recalled.

Lurie said that he applauded those who took part in social justice activism. But he did add that he found protests of the national anthem direspectful.

"Anybody who wants to do proactive things, to try to reverse social injustice, I'm all in favor of. It has to be respectful," he said. "It certainly has to respect the military and the people that serve, the women and men that serve our country, emergency responders, whoever that is."

Kaepernick, who currently is not on a team, gained national attention last year when he knelt during the national anthem before games to protest police brutality and what he called "a country that oppresses black people and people of color."

Click here for the mobile version of this story (with comments)