Eric Reid not planning to continue kneeling during anthem

Former San Francisco 49ers safety Eric Reid feels he's being shunned by NFL owners as he searches for a new team because of his history of protesting social injustice during the national anthem by kneeling. While he continues to be active in off-field matters, Reid says he is willing to stop his protests, citing the man who inspired him to start kneeling in 2016.

"From the beginning, Colin (Kaepernick) has been flexible," Reid said at Stanford's pro day on Thursday, according to Matt Maiocco of NBCS Bay Area. "He started by sitting. He changed it up. We decided to kneel. And we understand that you got to change with the times. So I'm not saying I’m going to stop being active, because I won’t. I’m just going to consider different ways to be active, different ways to bring awareness to the issues of this country to improve on.

"I don't think it’ll be in the form of protesting during the anthem. And I said 'during' because it’s crazy to me that the narrative got changed to we were protesting the anthem, because that wasn’t the case. But I think we’re going to take a different approach to how to be active."

Niners general manager John Lynch says he expects Reid to be signed once the market on safeties starts moving and left the door open for the 26-year-old to return to the team.

"I'd never say never," Lynch said about the possibility of re-signing Reid. "I really do think opportunities will start to come his way. We’ve been monitoring it closely and we’ll see how that shakes out."