Colin Kaepernick cannot stay away from the critics and the backlash to save his life. This time it’s coming from fellow blacklisted ex-superstar Antonio Brown.
Yeah, Antonio Brown has shots for everyone, and nobody is safe. If his ex-teammate, and seven-time Super Bowl-winning QB Tom Brady can get called out by AB, what makes anyone think Colin Kaepernick was above Brown’s mouthpiece?
In an interview this week with the “Cigar Talk” podcast, the “Boomin’” wide receiver blasted ex-QB and activist Colin Kaepernick for his exploitation of the spotlight and publicity for his protests and demonstrations.
“But they gave him the money and they gave him a commercial, they gave him the documentary,” Brown said. “He took a deal. We don’t feel sorry for you. You took the deal. F–k out of here. Oh, Kaepernick. Man, you on f—ing Nike, man. F–k out of here.”
Antonio Brown was clearly not pleased with Kap’s business moves and partnering with Nike for commercials and paychecks. But the main deal he’s referring to is the settlement Kaep and former safety Eric Reid reached with the NFL after Kap had filed a grievance in 2017, alleging that all 32 NFL team owners were colluding against him to keep him out of the league, essentially blackballing him from being signed and ending his career (since we haven’t seen him play any professional football since 2016).
They eventually reached a settlement deal in 2019, and Kaepernick got paid from the NFL.
Now Brown’s beef isn’t necessarily with the fact that Kaepernick took a settlement deal with the NFL, or that he’s been working with Nike and getting commercials and payments from them.
It seems that his main issue with these business dealings is that Kaepernick has the support of all of these organizations aiding him in his attempt to get his career back on track and promote his platform.
The way Brown sees it, whenever Kaep gets an opportunity to have some offseason workouts or have some type of showcase to prove he still deserves a spot in the NFL he tries to turn it into a “PR stunt.”
Brown also believes Kaepernick isn’t really putting in the work or the effort to really play seriously, and that he’s not really giving back to the communities and personally supporting the minority communities that he claims to have taken a stand for.
“Kaepernick did all that and took the money and then got the commercial,” Brown said. “We don’t see Kaepernick outside. Where he at? I ain’t never seem him outside. He already took the money, all that’s cap. We ain’t respecting that, bro. You took the money, the commercials. We don’t see you outside. We don’t see him in the hood. He don’t do nothing.”
In other words, Kaepernick is a sellout, according to Antonio Brown. Though these two players were shut out from the league for different reasons, Brown can understand what Kaep is going through as far as wanting to play in the league, although for very different reasons. In addition, Brown basically walked away from the game. Kaep was straight up blacklisted.
Different Kinds Of Guys
Brown just feels like him and Kaep aren’t cut from the same cloth, but one has garnered tons of attention and lucrative deals, meanwhile the other is trying his hardest to move and keep business boomin’. In a earlier interview this week, Brown had some more words for Kaep. Speaking in a “This is 50” podcast, he gave Kaepernick and the interviewer a piece of his mind about Kaepernick not getting restitution for what he was dealt with and how they’re treated differently. More specifically that Kaepernick isn’t actually mistreated.
“He’s been treated good,” Brown said. “He got (a) Netflix documentary — don’t get it twisted — see, that’s the wrong thing about the world, we think, ‘Oh, Kaepernick treated so bad because they don’t let him play football.’ Yeah, they didn’t let him play football, they gave him commercials, they gave him money.” Brown said.
“Kaepernick, he’s a great guy, he stood for a great cause, but he don’t understand,” Brown said on the “This Is 50” podcast. “He’s not from Liberty City, he ain’t even built like that. Dudes like me, they ban you. They don’t even give you contracts, they don’t even want to deal with you. I’m not really an icon right now. You don’t see them writing no books about me.” Brown continued.
It seems there’s a hint of envy and jealousy in Brown’s words, but it could also be that he feels like he and Kaep live by two different standards and that in his world there’s no love once you cross him.
Brown is questioning Kaep’s motivation to play, and what he really is striving for after being given all of these chances to stay relevant, but never truly committing to an NFL return. This, ironically, is coming from a player who was given numerous chances at a resurgence to prominence in the NFL by multiple teams, and even had the greatest football player of all time Tom Brady vouch for him and pull strings to bring him to his teams, twice with New England and Tampa Bay.
While it’s easy to understand where Brown is coming from in the issue he takes with Kaepernick, him taking the issue with Kaep at all is hypocritical, to say the least. In reality he’s been given way more chances of playing professionally than Kaepernick has, bouncing around to three different teams after he caused too much drama in Pittsburgh.
There are probably a bunch of people with issues with how AB has handled his business as well. Not sure he picked the right target here, but some might find some truth in it.
