NFL players will wear cleats during games this weekend to highlight groups and causes important to them like Shriners Hospitals and Lupus awareness as part of the league’s My Cause My Cleats initiative. Tennessee Titans wide receiver Rishard Matthews posted on Instagram that his cleats are in support of Colin Kaepernick’s Know Your Rights Camp campaign.
“He has paid the ultimate sacrifice in order to bring true everyday issues to light,” Matthews wrote on Instagram about Kaepernick.
After President Trump’s September comments about players who kneel during the anthem, Matthews, whose brother, a former Marine, died in Afghanistan while working as a defense contractor, told ESPN he planned to kneel during the anthem until Trump apologized.
“To keep it honest, he was calling a lot of us, and I feel that he was calling myself, an S.O.B., and that’s not OK and very disrespectful,” he said. “So I plan to kneel until the president apologizes.”
The design on the cleats Matthews will wear was done by SoulsbySir, who made other custom cleats for NFL players for the weekend, including for Pittsburgh Steelers’ TJ Watt, the Titans’ Logan Ryan, and several members of the Baltimore Ravens.
Matthews won’t be the first professional athlete to make a statement with his shoes this year. LeBron James wore a custom pair of his LeBron 15s with the word “Equality” written across the back for the Cleveland Cavaliers’ opening game in October.