‘Troublesome’ situation
It is true that Richard Sherman is not going to change a lot of minds about Colin Kaepernick.
That is, the football fans who swear up and down that they were just so mad about Kaepernick and his anthem protest last season are the same fans who generally don’t like Sherman and his tendency toward speaking his mind. Much of the criticism levelled at the former San Francisco quarterback — that he should have stayed quiet and not been a distraction to his team — has been directed at Sherman before. It’s kind of like being mad at Ben Affleck and having Matt Damon come to his defence.
Still, it is Sherman who has provided the brief, perfect indictment of the NFL’s collective refusal to offer Kaepernick a job.
Sherman was reacting to the news that Baltimore Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti was soliciting advice from fans and sponsors, and probably his hair stylist, life coach, and whomever else he could think to ask, about the possibility of signing Kaepernick. “Pray for us,” Bisciotti said on the weekend, as though the Ravens executives were about to jump Springfield Gorge.
Sherman said the idea of canvassing the fans seemed odd when “Ryan Fitzpatrick, Ryan Mallett or whoever is playing for the Jets right now — whoever is starting for the Jets is terrible — have jobs. You’re telling me fans would rather you lose and put a worse player out there because a guy took a stand? That’s where it’s so troublesome to me.”
Bingo. Aside from the excellent Jets burn, Sherman’s point has been the case throughout Kaepernick’s months-long unemployment, which began when he left the 49ers in March. There have always been at least a handful of teams with objectively worse starting quarterbacks, and a considerable number of teams — half the league, probably — whose backups don’t possess anything near Kaepernick’s resume.
But as the NFL offseason has ticked along, the quarterback deficit on some of those rosters has only become more glaring. Whoever is starting for the Jets is, in fact, terrible. Josh McCown, 38, has bounced around the league for years and is most notable for being one of the McCown brothers who are so collectively mediocre that no one is ever sure which is which. Also, he was not resigned by the Cleveland Browns. Cleveland!
Speaking of which, the Browns have entered training camp with a pair of sophomores, Cody Kessler and Kevin Hogan, plus rookie DeShone Kizer at quarterback. They also have Brock Osweiler, whom they acquired, along with a useful draft pick, only because the Houston Texans were desperate to dump his salary and erase the mistake of one of the all-time bad freeagent quarterback signings.
There is also, as Sherman noted, human interception machine Ryan Fitzpatrick, signed to be the backup in Tampa Bay, and Ryan Mallett, who happens to be the backup in Baltimore, where starter Joe Flacco is dealing with a back problem. Such injuries are notoriously problematic for quarterbacks who take shots to the back all the time, so it would make obvious sense for the Ravens to want a better safety net than Mallett, who has thrown seven touchdown passes (and 10 interceptions) over five NFL seasons.
Anytime one starts down this road of “Kaepernick is better than Quarterback X,” though, where Kaepernick does not have a job and Quarterback X does, it feels a little like trying to comprehensively prove that the sky is blue. Of course he is better at football than so many quarterbacks presently on rosters. He led a team to a Super Bowl and came within a play of winning it, and he has 72 touchdown passes and another 13 touchdowns on the ground to his credit, against just 30 interceptions. Honestly, it never takes until Week 3 of a given NFL season before there is a rush of stories about the dearth of quality players at the game’s most important and most difficult position, and yet someone who has proven to be far more than capable at it is still a free agent while teams populate their rosters with longshots, journeymen and retreads?
Bisciotti revealed all the “football decision” nonsense to be just that when he admitted the fear of some kind of fan/sponsor backlash is part of his calculus. At least the collective cowardice from front offices is now out there on display. Former Raven Ray Lewis then weighed in to advise Kaepernick to keep his beliefs to himself. Ray Lewis! After an ESPN report that said Bisciotti was the only thing keeping the Ravens from signing Kaepernick, the front office disputed that interpretation. Does management really prefer to send the message that it thinks, from a football perspective, that Mallett is the better choice? This is that message: “Hello. We are dumb.”
The Miami Dolphins have since emerged as a late contender for Kaepernick, with news that Ryan Tannehill suffered a knee injury. Owner Stephen Ross has already said that he didn’t think Kaepernick should be shunned due to his activism.
And in a sign of where we are in this NFL offseason, there have already been multiple reports about someone the Dolphins should acquire for QB security. Brock Osweiler, naturally.