Stills: I’m defending Kaepernick by kneeling

Raiders running back Marshawn Lynch sat during the national anthem Friday night before his team’s preseason home game against the Lions — just the latest demonstration that NFL player protests are not going away.

But according to one protesting player, the demonstrations now are about more than just what Colin Kaepernick first knelt for in 2016.

They’re also for Kaepernick himself, said Dolphins receiver Kenny Stills, among seven players to protest during the anthem at Thursday’s games.

Kaepernick and former 49ers teammate and fellow protester Eric Reid both remain free agents despite expressing interest in returning.

Kaepernick, San Francisco’s starting QB in the 2013 Super Bowl, has been embroiled in a collusion battle with the NFL, claiming teams are blackballing him. The 30-year-old appeared at a hearing Thursday that could result in the dismissal of his grievance.

“It would take a lot,” Stills said to reporters Friday, when asked what it would take for him to stop kneeling during the anthem this season. “But I think a good first step for us as a league would be acknowledging what they’re doing to Colin Kaepernick and Eric Reid. You can’t say as a league that you support the players and the protest and then blackball the players that initially started the protest.”

While the NFL rethinks the national anthem policy it announced, and then suspended, earlier this summer, Stills — along with teammate Albert Wilson, who kneeled with him Thursday — and other NFL players will be able to protest on the sidelines without fear of punishment from the league.

Players had been told to stay in the locker room if they wanted to kneel during the anthem, according to the previous policy, which the league put on hold July 20 following a report that Dolphins players could be suspended up to four games for protesting on the field.