Colin Kaepernick’s likeness was in last year’s Madden game. However, like Madden 19, Madden 18 also scrubbed his name from a song lyric.
The soundtrack for the version of game released in August 2017 included Bars of Soap from Mike WiLL Made-It. The song includes this line: “She be hopin’ that I take a knee like Kaepernick, yes.” EA removed the words “like Kaepernick” from the Madden version of the song.
The omission apparently went unnoticed for months; a Twitter user responded to the PFT story on the Madden 19 omission with a link to the audio from Madden 18. PFT separately confirmed that the Madden 18 soundtrack does indeed remove “like Kaepernick” from the song.
The fact that Kaepernick’s name was removed from the game a year ago, while he was still actively seeking NFL employment and hadn’t filed a collusion grievance against the NFL, could actually strengthen his legal claim. The NFL exclusively licenses EA to produce and market a video game with league and team logos and trademarks. It’s an official piece of NFL merchandise. The fact that the game omitted his name even before the anthem issue became a next-level news story in September 2017 with the President’s comments at a rally in Alabama and, a month later, Kaepernick filed a collusion grievance tends to show that the league had a clear bias against him.
Which becomes possible evidence that the league acted on that bias by advising teams not to offer him employment. Which becomes collusion when the league sends a consistent message to the various teams, and they act upon it.