Colin Kaepernick picked a fight with Trump in 2016. Here's how we know it's over

The worlds of social justice and professional football are bracing for a new collision with Colin Kaepernick requesting a tryout with the New York Jets.

The debates will track familiar territory. Is Kaepernick good enough? Has he been out of the league too long? Is he too much of a distraction?

And as all that plays out, there is at least one clear sign that the fight Kaepernick picked in 2016 with his decision to kneel during the national anthem is over:

Republican presidential contender Chris Christie sat next to Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones at State Farm Stadium in Glendale.

Jones and Christie have been buddies for a while, but the relationship takes on new significance with the heart and soul of the Republican Party at stake as conservatives consider their options to oppose Joe Biden in the 2024 election.

Will it be Donald Trump? Or someone else?

Is this a sign that Trump's in trouble?

Jones, one of the NFL’s most influential owners, has been a Trump guy in the past.

Now, he’s sitting with the anti-Trump candidate in a battleground state, implying, perhaps, an endorsement to those in the know.

Trump is facing a flurry of indictments, and his politics seem to get more extreme by the day. His continued popularity with the far-right wing of his party, however, has mainstream GOP strategists wondering whether Trump can win a national election.

For all the noise Trump and his supporters can make on social media and elsewhere, they’re in the grips of a bad losing streak that started in 2017 when Trump called protesting NFL players “sons of b------.”

Kaepernick is becoming immortal: Thanks to NFL owners

First, Roy Moore, a Trump-supported candidate, lost a U.S. Senate seat to a Democrat in Alabama. Republicans later lost control of the upper chamber, and Trump lost the White House.

The Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol resulted in arrests and convictions. And last year in Arizona, where Christie and Jones sat in a suite and watched the Cowboys get hogtied by the Cardinals, Kari Lake failed in her bid for governor and Blake Masters lost his Senate campaign.

Jones is not new to balking conservatives

This wouldn’t be the first time Jones has pivoted away from extreme conservative positions in Arizona.

In 2017, ahead of a Cardinals-Cowboys game at the height of the Kaepernick-inspired protests against racism and police brutality, Jones and his players locked arms, marched to the middle of the field and kneeled together before the anthem played.

Perhaps Jones saw the backlash coming and was trying to get ahead of it.

Every time the players protested, the NFL risked work strikes, fan boycotts and advertising dollars.

Kaepernick became a celebrity of the social justice movement and eventually won a reported $10 million settlement in a collusion lawsuit he filed against the league, saying owners blackballed him — or was he “whiteballed?” — to keep him off the field.

The league also made a public commitment to support causes attached to racial equality, with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell saying in 2020: “We, the National Football League, condemn racism and the systematic oppression of Black people. We … admit we were wrong for not listening to NFL players earlier and encourage all to speak out and peacefully protest. We … believe Black lives matter.”

The battle Kaepernick started is done

“Black lives matter” as a statement as well as “Black Lives Matter” as an organization are acidic to the MAGA base, and if we can read anything into Jones’ decision to sit with Christie, it’s this: Trump is out as a mainstream conservative darling.

Jones wears a big hat in Texas and holds similar sway among the Billionaire Good ‘Ol Boys Club in NFL ownership. Trump can’t win without Texas and Arizona or big-money donors from around the nation.

It looks like the fight Kaepernick started is finished and that he and the players won a significant concession from conservative powerbrokers.

It remains to be seen whether the embattled quarterback can return to the field for the first time in seven seasons, but it’s clear that he’s going to be under center in the latest collision between the worlds of social justice and professional football.

Reach Moore at gmoore@azcentral.com or 602-444-2236. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, @SayingMoore.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Colin Kaepernick picked a fight with Trump, and years later, won