We could have predicted that a Super Bowl played in the home stadium of the San Francisco 49ers was going to lead some woke sports section to turn to their revolutionary hero Colin Kaepernick, the one who wore pigs-with-police hat socks because all cops are apparently pigs. It came from The Washington Post. The online headline:  What do we make of Colin Kaepernick now? The Super Bowl is being played in his former home stadium, at a societal moment that echoes the issues he forced football fans to confront. So why is he out of mind? As @AGHamilton tweeted for all of us: "Beyond parody to publish this take after a week of arguing that WaPo’s sports section provides irreplaceable and critical insights to readers." Former fans of the Post Sports section were annoyed at the paper's crusading against the "Redskins" name. We reported in 2014 that in a crusade led by sports columnist Mike Wise, the Post printed 31,562 words on the self-created controversy in just one year. The Super Bowl is being played in Colin Kaepernick's former home stadium, at a societal moment that echoes the issues he forced football fans to confront nearly 10 years ago, after he kneeled during the national anthem before a 49ers game. https://t.co/TX2l7r7msx — The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) February 8, 2026 Sports reporter Adam Kilgore offered the typical opinion piece:  SAN FRANCISCO — The most relevant figure to Super Bowl LX is absent from it. The game will be played in his former home stadium, in the place where his protest made him a national lightning rod and a global symbol. The social issues swirling around America’s largest sporting spectacle carry distinct echoes of what prompted his actions and what led to his exile. And yet he remains outside the conversation and invisible within the confines of the NFL. Colin Kaepernick might as well be a ghost. “Colin Kaepernick?” Seattle Seahawks safety Julian Love said this week, as if hearing a name he had not considered in a long time. “Oh, wow.” Yes, wow. Kaepernick hasn't played in the NFL since 2016. The quarterback drafted just above him in the second round in 2011 is Andy Dalton, who's still a backup for the Carolina Panthers, but few notice. Most players who played during Kaepernick's years are retired and  barely remembered now. For his part, Love later praised Kaepernick's activism in the article.  As usual, leftist activism makes you a “worldwide emblem of outrage,” a woke hero: The image of Kaepernick on a knee became a worldwide emblem of outrage over police violence and racial injustice — and a tempest that led to unwanted political entanglement for the NFL, fierce ire from the political right and Kaepernick’s ostracism from professional football. The current moment and the Super Bowl’s location provide a platform to examine the legacies of Kaepernick’s protest. He served as a flash point, and even as he semi-receded from public life, his influence hovers over the league as an example of both courage and consequences.... His boldness and prescience did not ensure triumph. Donald Trump, the president who referred to players who knelt as “that son of a b----,” won reelection. Most of this article is a pile of leftist athletes, union reps, and professors, complaining the the current ICE agitators in Minneapolis near more celebrity hype:  “The silence there is very, very loud from athletes both in and outside of Minneapolis,” said Ayesha Bell Hardaway, director of Case Western Reserve University’s Social Justice Institute. “That, too, is Colin’s legacy. The impact of him paying that consequence, we should all wonder if what he had to endure has made others feel as if they cannot speak out and therefore not speak out.” To The Washington Post, there can always be more revolutionary leftist protesting -- so they can amplify and celebrate it.