ESPN’s Ryan Clark Openly Calls Out The ‘Shut Up And Dribble’ Critics & Media For Being Silent On Nick Bosa’s MAGA Hat Controversy

Nick Bosa in 49ers cap and Ryan Clark on setNick Bosa and Ryan Clark (Photos via Getty Images)
ESPN analyst Ryan Clark sees the hypocrisy with Nick Bosa, and he is calling it out.

Clark, like millions of others, saw the moment 49ers star Nick Bosa pulled out his “Make America Great Again” cap after the team’s win over the Dallas Cowboys.

We also saw a lack of criticism, which points to the double standard in sports media.

Ryan Clark wants the same energy from the media for Bosa as it had for Colin Kaepernick.

In 2016, Colin Kaepernick kneeled during the playing of the National Anthem to bring attention to the way police officers deal with people of color. He was widely blasted and ultimately lost his career.

In 2024, Nick Bosa interrupted NBC’s postgame interviews to flash a “Make America Great Again” hat, and he was widely praised for his actions.

 

Since then, the story has mostly disappeared.

That has now led to Ryan Clark, in an episode of his podcast The Pivot, to call out what he sees as complete hiprocrisy between Bosa being largely ignored and the way in which Kaepernick was vilified in 2016.

“I also think it’s sort of ironic this happens in San Francisco, where Colin Kaepernick legitimately lost his career, not because he said America is a bad place, because he said, ‘I want to make America a better place for people like us,’ not because he said that he wants brown and black people to be superior to others, but just equal. He wanted their lives and our lives to matter as much as everyone else’s life,” Clark said via Mediaite.

“The MAGA movement has been very clear that all lives don’t matter the same, that all people aren’t sort of deserving of the same treatment, of the same compassion, of the same level of life and liberty; and so I do think that the ‘shut up and dribble’ thing that always is told to the LeBron James’s is when he speaks up against police brutality, to the Colin Kaepernick’s when he speaks up against police brutality, to all these athletes who were involved in movements in 2020 — it only seems to go to the athletes that look like us, to the people that are speaking for the marginalized and the minorities as opposed to the majorities, because when [Donald Trump] called Colin Kaepernick and other people who kneeled, ‘Sons of [expletives],’ nobody told him to keep politics out of sports. So it seems very clear to me Nick Bosa understands that when you wear that hat, you take a side. You take a side of division in a sport that’s supposed to bring us together.”

Colin Kaepernick’s Girlfriend Also Fired Off At Nick Bosa For His Actions

Even though Bosa and Kaepernick played for the same franchise at different times, their situations have been viewed fairly differently.

In the aftermath of San Francisco 49ers star Nick Bosa interrupting a teammate’s interview to show off a ‘Make America Great Again’ hat, Nessa Diab, Colin Kaepernick’s partner, voiced her stance against him.

After the team’s recent victory over the Dallas Cowboys, Bosa interrupted Brock Purdy’s postgame interview wearing a MAGA (Make America Great Again) hat.

Unlike the reaction to Kaepernick, Bosa was praised.

Diab took to Instagram to share the clip, making it clear that she stands by Kaepernick.

“#IMWITHKAP, #STILLWITHKAP,” Diab wrote on Instagram.