In this week’s Monday Morning Quarterback Sports Illustrated column, when discussing the bizarre QB landscape in the current NFL, Peter King writes, “So Kaepernick has bought a place in downtown Manhattan and lives in the big city fairly anonymously. I spent a long draft weekend with the Niners in California, and there are those in the building who think Kaepernick might actually rather do social justice work full-time than play quarterback. He emerges in New York City occasionally for noble cause work, last week donating 100 mens suits to a parole office in Queens, so recipients, recently out of prison, would look more presentable when going on job interviews. I havent talked to Kaepernick, so I have no idea what his gut is telling him about what to do with his life. But its crazy that a quarterback who four years ago was coming off a Super Bowl appearance and looked to be a long-term answer has no team now and no hot NFL prospects that anyone can see. If I were a pro scout or a GM with a starting or backup quarterback need, Id be on a plane to New York to have lunch with Kaepernick to ask him where he sees his life going. And if he sees a football future, and if I had a great quarterback coach (Sean McVay with the Rams, Bruce Arians in Arizona), Id sign him to an incentive-laden contract. Right now.”
Dave Zirin, The Nations sports editor and the brilliant author of eight books on the politics of sports, recently took to Twitter to combat the idiotic assertion that Colin Kaepernick has decided to walk away from the NFL.
Having spoken to Kaepernick, I can say – in contradiction to anonymous NFL claims made to Peter King – he has not “moved on” from football
Dave Zirin (@EdgeofSports) May 9, 2017
“Anonymous NFL sources” say this to cover up for a transparent political blackballing that is getting more & more embarrassing & obvious.
Dave Zirin (@EdgeofSports) May 9, 2017
Kaepernick is working out every day, sharp as hell, waiting for a camp invite. Everyone knows that this is getting absurd. 16 TDs 4 INTs
Dave Zirin (@EdgeofSports) May 9, 2017
They use Kaep’s presence at Know Your Rights camp on Sat. to justify claim he’s moved on. Brady was at KY Derby on Sat. Is he now a jockey?
Dave Zirin (@EdgeofSports) May 9, 2017
The absurdity of Kaepernick still not being signed to an NFL roster, when guys like Mike Glennon, Cody Kessler, Brian Hoyer and Josh McCown are at the top of their respective teams’ depth charts tells you all you need to know about this situation.
The longer this goes on, the more credence the NFL gives to the notion that, despite their public image and hold on the country’s psyche, they represent the worst of what America is really all about.
The league that made drug addicts out of thousands of its former players, the league that fines people for dancing too much during their touchdown celebrations, the league that spent millions of dollars in court denying that their violent game caused CTE to avoid paying the medical bills of its retired warriors is the very same league that will willingly employ woman beaters, criminals, drug dealers and psychopaths.
But stand up for social inequities and the moral reprehensibility of police brutality, utilizing your individual platform to elicit some much-needed thought and discussion while enacting some positive change in the lives of others, and you can expect to be blackballed.
It’s a damn shame.
And it’s very clear that Kaepernick hasn’t willingly moved on from the NFL at this point. He still wants to play.
It’s the NFL that has moved on from him, borrowing from the well-worn playbook of marginalizing and discrediting any man of color with stature who speaks out on the wrongs, ills and evils of the world and its power structure.
It’s time anyone with a conscience moved on from the NFL.
