The prevailing theory on why NFL teams are stubbornly devoted to signing every quarterback on the planet except Colin Kaepernick is that the league and owners are sending a message to players: Toe the line, keep your mouths shut. Jeopardize this fan base and you jeopardize your career — and here’s your proof, your unemployed, vilified colleague here.

That, by all appearances, was the message.

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As of Monday morning, following the first full weekend of preseason games ... message undelivered. Connection failed.

Malcolm Jenkins of the Eagles raised his fist during the anthem Thursday night. Marshawn Lynch of the Raiders sat down on Saturday night. Michael Bennett of the Seahawks sat down on Sunday … on a nationally televised game on the league’s own network.

The players were not silenced. And the noise around the quarterback-turned-pariah is getting louder by the day.

It’s not by his hand or his gesture, since he’s still on the outside looking in. The noise is coming from everywhere else, not only among the players who refuse to buckle, but also from the rest of the country and the world. It's proving Kaepernick’s original point in the most painful and extreme ways.

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It was just coincidence this weekend’s anthem gestures happened in and around the white supremacist marches in Charlottesville that culminated in a blatant, deadly terrorist attack. But it’s that exact development to which Kaepernick and his supporters have been fighting to draw attention, have been warning would come to pass.

So many people were dedicated to clouding the issue, muddying the waters, perverting his cause — disrespecting the troops, dividing the locker room, bringing in baggage, being a distraction, etc. They also kept ignoring the events that inspired Kaepernick to protest in the first place — the slayings of unarmed black people by police being the biggest example — and his own explanation for his gestures.

Those words, as told to Steve Wyche last August, when Wyche first broke the news of his sit-down: “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color.”

In Charlottesville this weekend, everyone of every race who didn't agree with the white supremacist demonstrators was in the line of fire. After the worst of the damage had been done, with a woman dead and dozens injured, the president of the United States took more than a day and more than one public statement to even obliquely denounce the specific parties responsible.

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And speaking of that … back in March, at the dawn of free agency, Mike Freeman of Bleacher Report quoted an unnamed team executive on why teams were backing away from Kaepernick: “They think there might be protests or Trump will tweet about the team.’’

These are the people the NFL and its teams are prioritizing as they seemingly blackball Kaepernick and strong-arm his fellow players. These are, in fact, the fans who reached out to Giants owner John Mara, and to whom Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti solicited input on Kaepernick. (Not to mention asking for prayer, and asking for Ray Lewis’s guidance).

Instead, New York signed Geno Smith and Josh Johnson to back up Eli Manning. Baltimore signed Ryan Mallett, Dustin Vaughan, David Olson, Josh Woodrum and, on Monday morning, Thaddeus Lewis. This, with the fans, and backlash, and distractions, and the president’s Twitter account in mind.

Now at the start of preseason, at least three active and respected players declared they won’t going to be strong-armed into silence with their silent gestures.

If the NFL wants to put the livelihoods of Jenkins, Lynch and Bennett in danger over this — the way they did with Kaepernick — then they'll be sending a clear message about themselves.

They’d better be cognizant of what that message is.