Hello, person who doesn’t normally read articles about sports. Welcome to what I hope to be my final and definitive take on Colin Kaepernick and his current lack of employment in the National Football League. No one has been the subject of more “hot takes” this week other than Donald Trump.
While we all have a working knowledge and rooting interest in attacking the Great and Powerful Orange, the Kaepernick commentary has been all over the place, with NFL hardliners writing that Kaepernick doesn’t have a job today because he’s not good enough and the people, mostly outside of sports, writing about how Kaepernick has been blackballed from the NFL because of his Black Lives Matter kneeldown protest.
So who’s right?
Everybody is. Oh yeah, I’m about to hit you hard with some facts, some nuance and some actual football knowledge and you’re just going to have to hang with me. Colin Kaepernick is currently unemployed by an NFL team because of fear of fan backlash over his kneeldown protest AND because he’s not good at playing quarterback.
Before I get into all of that, I want to introduce you, the casual football fan who only watches the Super Bowl and/or political/socially conscious writer/pundit/Facebook poster to the Colin Kaepernick I and the rest of my NFL writer brethren and sistren knew before the 2016 NFL Preseason. Because it’s important.
This Colin Kaepernick was on a hard slide down in his career because of his inability to learn to play his position at an NFL level. Defenses had taken away the success of the read option offense after his first full year starting and he was being forced to make multiple pass reads, play from the pocket. His inability to decipher what he was seeing gave him one of the slowest snap-to-pass times in the NFL and led directly to being sacked a ridiculous 52 times in 2014. Only one player in the league was sacked more that season and it was then Jacksonville Jaguars rookie QB Blake Bortles. You know, a tree, not one of the most mobile and quickest quarterbacks in the NFL.
Just as a player, Kaepernick’s career was at a crossroads. While the argument could be made on later 49ers team that the talent around Kaepernick was lacking, 2014’s 49ers were loaded across the board. Jim Harbaugh was still the head coach and San Francisco arguably had the best offensive line in all of football. Kaepernick’s performance was the problem, why the team finished 8-8 and gave the Yorks an excuse to send Harbaugh packing. A disastrous move that completely destroyed the franchise.
That’s what was happening on the field. Off the field, Kaepernick was roundly perceived as either an aloof loner or an asshole. He started a fight with the NFL over his choice of headphones, of all things. Got into a actual fight with a teammate over a girlfriend. He was fined for using a racial or homophobic slur against an opposing player during a game. He was perceived so negatively in his own locker room that 2015 head coach Jim Tomsula had to call a team meeting to address it. And on top of all that, anytime Kaepernick had to deal with the San Francisco media, he was kind of a dick.
After the 2015 season wrapped up and Kaepernick was benched halfway through for his backup, Blaine Gabbert, it was clear his time in San Francisco was over. All this was before he decided to protest the anthem.
It’s important to understand that regardless of how Kaepernick came off before his anthem protest, he was sincere about it. He made no mention that he was going to do it publicly. There was no press conference and no prepared statement. Before a preseason game between the 49ers and Green Bay Packers, Jennifer Lee Chen noticed Kaepernick sitting during the anthem and took a picture.
Colin Kaepernick did not stand during the National Anthem – my picture provides proof. https://t.co/NZ2OIceBxA
— Jennifer Lee Chan (@jenniferleechan) August 27, 2016
And that’s what started the public backlash. According to NFL.com’s Mike Garafolo, he’d been sitting all preseason but no one noticed because he wasn’t in uniform.
So if you think that Kaepernick was doing it for publicity or to stir up controversy, go ahead and erase that from your mind. He made a conscious, and up until that third preseason game, private decision based on his real feelings. When asked about it, I believe that he was being completely honest in his response.
“I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color,” Kaepernick said. “To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder. …This is not something that I am going to run by anybody. I am not looking for approval. I have to stand up for people that are oppressed. … If they take football away, my endorsements from me, I know that I stood up for what is right.”
When confronted at the possibility his sit down protest could be seen as disrespectful to military families, Kaepernick actually made a solid compromise. He decided to kneeldown for the anthem and did so, along with other NFL players, all season.
If a kneeldown is “disrespectful,” then churches are filled with folks disrespecting God every Sunday. So, you know, get over that.
Regardless, the shitstorm raged all season. I, myself, went from just rolling my eyes at Kaepernick, to full-fledged but futile support. Through all of this, my opinion didn’t change. Colin Kaepernick’s time in the NFL had come to an end.
Which would seem to ally me with the people writing that Kaepernick has been “blackballed” and completely undermine my stated thesis that both his stance and his talent are keeping him out of the league. Allow me to explain myself.
There are 32 NFL teams, but there are not 32 NFL starting-level quarterbacks on the face of the planet right now. By my count, there are 22 teams that can claim a legit NFL starter. That leaves 10 that don’t have a guy. Of those 10, the Los Angeles Rams, Chicago Bears, Philadelphia Eagles, Denver Broncos and Houston Texans have all drafted first round quarterbacks over the last two seasons in hopes that he will turn into one of those legit starters.
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