Photo : Thearon W. Henderson ( Getty Images

Former 49er Eric Reid, a five-year NFL vet who has yet to be signed this offseason despite ranking as one of the top available safeties, told reporters during his brother’s pro day workout at Stanford today that he’ll stop protesting during the national anthem if he’s signed by an NFL team. Via NBC Sports:

“I’m not saying I’m going to stop being active, because I won’t. I’m just going to consider different ways to be active, different ways to bring awareness to the issues of this country to improve on. “I don’t think it’ll be in the form of protesting during the anthem. And I said ‘during’ because it’s crazy to me that the narrative got changed to we were protesting the anthem, because that wasn’t the case. But I think we’re going to take a different approach to how to be active.”


In order to protest racial inequality and police brutality, Reid began kneeling alongside Colin Kaepernick in the 2016 preseason, continuing to demonstrate through most games of 2017 as well. Fellow defensive backs Devin McCourty and Richard Sherman have both said in recent days that they believed Reid wasn’t being signed because he protested. Reid himself also tweeted last week that NFL owners’ reactions to his protests were limiting his prospects this offseason. Those owners will be be glad to hear that fans are no longer at risk of having their awareness of racial injustice raised.