Eric Reid (left) joined Colin Kaepernick in taking a knee before a September 2016 game. (Mike McCarn/Associated Press)
Colin Kaepernick grabbed headlines this week, working out and showing everyone in a widely shared video that he is in shape and capable of throwing a football. But the free agent quarterback has remained unsigned since he and the San Francisco 49ers parted in March 2017, with many believing that his social activism is keeping him out of the game.
That wasn’t lost on Eric Reid, the 49ers safety who joined Kaepernick in taking a knee during the national anthem to raise awareness of police brutality and racial injustice. Now, he’s a free agent, too, and he believes that his activism is hurting him with owners.
“GMs aren’t the hold up broski. It’s ownership,” he responded to one tweet. “People who know football know who can play. People who know me, know my character.”
The 26-year-old Reid, who was a first-round pick out of LSU, out of necessity had to play some of the season at linebacker and the Niners opted not to re-sign him when his four-year, $8.4 million contract expired.
“The notion that I can be a great signing for your team for cheap, not because of my skill set but because I’ve protested systemic oppression, is ludicrous,” Reid wrote in another tweet. “If you think [it] is, then your mind-set is part of the problem too.”
Reid’s visibility as an activist grew last season, with Kaepernick out of the league and NFL player demonstrations drawing the ire of President Trump, and he explained to The Post’s Kent Babb in October that “I was taught growing up that you always do what you believe.”
“A lot of it was taking Colin’s direction,” he said. “I told him how I felt and told him I wanted to support him, and from there we just kept talking and talking and talking, and here we are.”
Trump continued to draw attention to the demonstrations, and players saw that the message was being altered to a criticism of the military as NFL ratings dropped. Players and NFL team owners sought to convert the activism to action and Reid was a visible member of the Players Coalition that was formed.
“Change in policies, change to the criminal justice system, just changes in our country overall,” Reid told Babb when he was asked what he would see as a satisfactory ending to his protest — which has grown to include dozens of NFL players and athletes in other sports. “We got here through decades and decades of the government prioritizing the needs of one group of people and de-prioritizing the needs of others.
“ . . . They target low-income families, families of color. Any change in policy moving forward is a start. It took hundreds of years to get where we are, so everything is not going to change tomorrow. But we can start today.”
By December, as he no doubt knew he might be a free agent, he understood that his activism might cost him. It has cost Kaepernick, with many asking if owners are blacklisting him.
“I would say I understand that’s a possibility and I’m completely fine with it,” he told ESPN. “The things that I’ve done, I stand by, and I’ve done that for my own personal beliefs. Like I said, I’m fine with whatever outcome happens because of that.”
That doesn’t mean he has to be quiet about it.
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