No, NFL isn't encouraging players to kneel for Israel before every game | Fact check

Joedy McCreary, USA TODAY
·3 min read
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The claim: The NFL encourages players to kneel for Israel before each game

A Dec. 4 Instagram post (direct link, archive link) shows a man claiming the NFL is pushing its players to make highly visible social statements about a foreign country at war.

“The NFL is encouraging their players to take a knee as a sign of respect towards Israel before every single game,” says the man in the video, which was first shared on TikTok.

It was liked more than 7,000 times in two weeks and was shared more than 5,000 times on TikTok. A similar version on Instagram also accumulated hundreds of likes in less than two weeks.

More from the USA TODAY Fact Check Team:

Our rating: False

An NFL spokesperson says the claim is false. While the league held moments of silence before games during a single week in October, it has not encouraged kneeling.

‘Patently false’ claim NFL encourages kneeling

In the aftermath of the deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israel by the militant group Hamas, the NFL and many of its teams recognized the victims by issuing statements of support and holding moments of silence before some games.

But the league is not encouraging players to kneel for Israel before every game, as the post claimed. That assertion is “patently false,” NFL spokesperson Tim Schlittner told USA TODAY in an email.

Fact check: Claim that NFL coaches voted to ban kneeling during anthem is satire

The NFL held leaguewide moments of silence before games during a single week – those played between Oct. 12-16, the first full week of competition following the attack.

The first of those moments took place Oct. 12 before the Kansas City Chiefs home game against the Denver Broncos. No players kneel in the video of the moment posted to the NFL’s account on X, formerly Twitter. Nor were any players shown on a knee in footage posted to X of the moment of silence before the Baltimore Ravens-Tennessee Titans game on Oct. 15 in London or in the Los Angeles Rams' video of their pregame remembrance that day.

The man in the Instagram video compares the NFL's purported support of kneeling for Israel with the treatment of Colin Kaepernick and others who have faced public blowback for kneeling during the national anthem to protest racial injustice. Kaepernick, a former quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, started the national debate about anthem conduct in 2016 by taking a knee while it played.

But there is no credible evidence the NFL encourages players to kneel before games for any reason or cause. The league instituted a policy in 2018 that prohibits players from kneeling during the anthem but allows them to remain in the locker room during it.

Player conduct before games has been a frequent source of misinformation. USA TODAY previously debunked claims that Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin cut two players for kneeling, that Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce defied coach Andy Reid's order to kneel and that University of Colorado coach Deion Sanders benched two players for taking a knee.

When contacted by USA TODAY, the social media user who shared the post did not provide evidence that supports the claim.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: False claim NFL pushes kneeling for Israel before games | Fact check