12 Cleveland Browns Players Kneel For National Anthem Including First White Player

The list of NFL players kneeling during the national anthem is growing.

A dozen Cleveland Browns players kneeled in protest while the national anthem played before a preseason game Monday night. So far, it is the largest such protest of NFL players, and it is the first time a white player kneeled during the anthem, according to the Washington Post Tuesday.

While white players have expressed support for kneeling or sitting protests before, none had participated.

“There's a lot of racial and social injustices in the world that are going on right now,” rookie safety Jabrill Peppers told ESPN after the game. “We just decided to take a knee and pray for the people who have been affected and just pray for the world in general.”

Several other players supported their kneeling teammates by placing a hand on their shoulders.

“We did it out of respect,” linebacker Christian Kirksey told ESPN. “No disrespect for anyone, we just felt like it was the right time and the need to do it.”

Tight end Seth DeValve, who is white, pointed to the events in Charlottesville, Virginia, as the reason he was kneeling. This month an alt-right rally tinged with neo-Nazism and white supremacy in Charlottesville ended with violence when a man with ties to white supremacy plowed his car into a group of counterprotesters, killing one woman and injuring at least 19.

“We wanted to draw attention to the fact that there’s things in this country that still need to change, and I myself will be raising children that don’t look like me and I want to do my part as well, to do everything I can to raise them in a better environment than we have right now,” said DeValve to reporters after the game. DeValve’s wife is black.

The Browns players joined a recent tradition started by quarterback Colin Kaepernick in 2016 when he was playing for the San Francisco 49ers. Kaepernick sat during the national anthem in a preseason game, but then switched to kneeling to be more respectful.

“I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder,” explained Kaepernick at the time.

Seahawks defensive end Michael Bennett also began sitting during the anthem this year.

The Browns players that knelt were running backs Duke Johnson Jr., Terrence Magee, Isaiah Crowell and Brandon Wilds, safeties Peppers and Calvin Pryor, cornerback Jamar Taylor, receivers Kenny Britt and Ricardo Louis, linebackers Kirksey and Jamie Collins and tight end DeValve, according to ESPN.