Dustin Chambers for The New York Times
It is doubtful that the N.F.L. owners understood, when they decided early in 2016 to play the Super Bowl here, how the city of Atlanta, as the cradle of the civil rights movement, would serve as a natural forum for the many complicated social and racial issues that have roiled the league in recent years.
Now, many players are showing that the moment is not lost on them.
On Tuesday, Devin McCourty, a team captain on the New England Patriots, and several of his teammates boarded a bus to pay homage at the Martin Luther King Jr.