The Bears continued to protest racial inequality and police violence during the national anthem in their home opener.
Two players raised their fists in the air during Jim Cornelison’s singing of the anthem: tight end Jimmy Graham and James Vaughters.
Seven more knelt before the start of the Giants game: tackle Bobby Massie, linebacker Joel Iyiegbuniwe and defensive linemen Akiem Hicks, Brent Urban, Roy Robertson-Harris, Bilal Nichols and John Jenkins.
They did the same last week when the Bears opened the season against the Lions.
Sunday, 24 players stayed in the tunnel during the song and took the field upon its completion.
The protests were similar to what the Bears did last week. While coach Matt Nagy said during the preseason that he preferred his team have a unified protest, he said last week the disparate approaches actually fit into his team mantra of ‘Be You.’
“Every one of us has our opinion as to what’s going on right now,” he said. “What’s important to us right now is we understand that we all respect what somebody else is going through and what they want to do.”
