Tyreek Hill Isn’t Taking the ‘Colin Kaepernick Route’ After Police Detainment

Two days ago, the NFL world was stunned when visuals emerged of Tyreek Hill being manhandled by the Miami-Dade Police Department. Since then, many have been urging Tyreek and his well-wishers to fight back with protests and marches.

However, the Cheetah isn’t planning to take that route — the approach that former NFL QB Colin Kaepernick took in 2016 to protest police brutality and racial injustice.

Hours ago, Dolphins OT Terron Armstead took to social media to share a screenshot of a chat with the wide receiver, where Tyreek confirmed that protesting or marching against what happened to him won’t be effective. Tyreek sees this as a fundamental problem. Therefore, he told Terron that a systematic change is needed to make things safe for all.

“We not gonna protest or march. We need to more. This sh*t has to change. It’s not safe for anyone,” the text read.

Considering that the major tangible change from the Kaepernick protests was the mainstream adoption of ‘taking the knee,’ it makes sense why Tyreek doesn’t want to pander to symbolic gestures. Hill, therefore, retweeted the screenshot, further enforcing that he didn’t want himself and his well-wishers to traverse the same remedial path that Colin went on.

The offensive tackle was unsurprisingly inspired by his teammate’s words and complimented Tyreek for leading the path to change rather than simply being another voiceless victim:

@cheetah
True Leader!! Not a victim!
Looking to move forward and find ways to make real change!
If you’re not apart of the solution, you’re apart of the problem! pic.twitter.com/cR1PygZD0U

— T. Stead (@T_Armstead72) September 10, 2024

That said, while this stance of Tyreek may make him come across as someone who was relatively composed after the incident, Armstead’s tweet reveals that the WR was anything but composed after what happened.

“What’s next?”: Hill is tired of protesting and taking the knee with no effect

Most athletes in Hill’s place would have barely been able to show up to the locker room in playing condition. But the Cheetah showed up for his team, albeit with a fit of rage. As per Armstead, the Cheetah entered the locker room with immense rage and pain inside him. The OT also revealed that all the Dolphins players, like him, could feel Tyreek’s pain.

Tyreek walked in the locker room just moments after this! His eyes were red filled with anger and pain! As he’s telling me what happened, I couldn’t do nothing but feel the pain of my brother!! Seeing this shit makes it even worse man! Completely unnecessary, completely sad! https://t.co/hPD0usygPu

— T. Stead (@T_Armstead72) September 10, 2024

This revelation makes Hill’s performance against the Jaguars even more impressive. But the issue for Tyreek currently is bigger than this. Since the screenshot was posted online, Tyreek has even made a media appearance emphasizing just one message — the need for a systematic change.

Let’s make a change

— Ty Hill (@cheetah) September 10, 2024

“We tried it all. We protested. We took a knee. What’s next? We’re brainstorming on how we can be a part of this change,” the wide receiver further said in an interview with CNN.