RUSHIN’ COLLUSION

Claim is tough for QB to prove, but possible

It would be an explosive claim. If Colin Kaepernick were to accuse NFL owners of colluding against him and staging a group boycott against giving him a job, the polarizing freeagent QB would have his work cut out for him. He would have to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that more than one team owner or executive actually had a discussion and plotted to keep him out of football. NFL players have been calling it collusion for months. While Kaepernick has remained silent on the subject, players like Eagles safety Malcolm Jenkins and media personalities like Bart Scott have all come out and said they believe Kaepernick is being blackballed for refusing to stand for the national anthem last year, and that he remains unemployed because of his efforts to raise awareness about racial inequality and issues like police brutality. “I would love to see him push back, because I do think he’s been blackballed, and there’s plenty of quotes from owners or whoever saying they’re afraid of the backlash they would get,” Jenkins told the Daily News. “With all the attention and people that are following him and ready to support Kaepernick, I think he should (file a complaint).” The NFL, which has an antitrust exemption from Congress, has very clear and strict rules outlawing teams from colluding against players. Article 17 of the league’s Collective Bargaining Agreement with the players’ union prohibits teams from working together against players and states any victims of collusion are entitled to double damages. Collusion also doesn’t require all 32 teams working together. As few as two individuals can collude against a player to trigger a legitimate antitrust infraction, according to legal experts.

If Kaepernick can prove so much as an email exchange or a text message or a phone call took place between just two people agreeing not to sign him, the CBA stipulates he could claim economic damages (likely the average contract QBs were getting this offseason), as well as additional compensation equal to double what those lost wages calculate to.

Stop for a minute and just imagine the gravity and spectacle of such a case: the NFL on trial for conspiring against a player because of his racial, social and political beliefs.

“Proving collusion is difficult,” Eagles defensive lineman Chris Long said. “It’s obvious he’s being blackballed on some level, and that in and of itself, is problematic.”

In the 1980s, free-agent baseball players proved MLB owners were conspiring against them to keep salaries down. An arbitrator awarded $280 million in damages.

“The challenge with making a successful collusion claim, both under antitrust law and under a sports collective bargaining agreement, is factually proving the wrongdoing,” said Marc Edelman, a sports law expert and law professor at Baruch.

“When the Major League Baseball Players Association successfully proved collusion by the club owners, the players’ association was able to produce a smoking gun memo indicating a plan to collude. However, here it is reasonably likely that no such memo exists.

“Even in the absence of a smoking gun memo or other explicit evidence, it is still possible to prove collusion where a reasonable person could exclude the possibility of a given outcome absent collusion,” he said. “However, mere consciously parallel conduct by team owners, absent even the presumption of an implicit agreement among club owners, would not arise to the level of a violation.”

The NFLPA did not respond to multiple requests for comment on this story.

Outside of his place on the NFLPA’s official merchandise top 50 list (Kaepernick came in No. 39 this month, the only player on the list without a team), the union has not said much about the free-agent QB recently.

That was not the case last summer when the anthem protests began and NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith seemed ready to go to the mattresses for Kaepernick.

“There is never going to be a day where this union is going to sit back idly and allow anybody to trample our players’ rights,” he told the Nation’s Dave Zirin. “We’ve taken stands that I’m sure haven’t been popular across the board. The version of ‘shut up and play’ that I hear is, ‘Why do these guys need a union to begin with?’ Well, they have one and we are always going to take the position of fighting for the rights of our players, and if we believe that those rights have been violated, we’re going to stand up and support every player.”

In May of this year, George Atallah, the union’s assistant executive director of external affairs, told ESPN there was no evidence of collusion behind Kaepernick’s unemployment. But not everyone shares his opinion.

“People act like owners don’t collude,” Scott said two weeks later on CBS Sports Radio. “I think they colluded against Ray Rice, and I think they’re colluding against Colin Kaepernick. They’re saying it without saying it. You have owners that the other owners look up to and model themselves after. You can talk about (the) Rooney (family), you can talk about the Tischs, you can talk about the Krafts of the world, and you can talk about the Jerry Joneses of the world and the rest of them kind of fall in line. If they don’t see them taking a chance, then they won’t take a chance as well.” While the union has been relatively quiet, NFL owners and executives have had a lot to say about their reluctance to hire Kaepernick.

Giants owner John Mara, who knew about and still gave a contract to abusive kicker Josh Brown, has said he would be skittish to extend the same courtesy to Kaepernick.

“All my years being in the league, I nev- er received more emotional mail from people than I did about that issue,” Mara told The MMQB. “If any of your players ever (kneel for the anthem), we are never coming to another Giants game. It wasn’t one or two letters. It was a lot .”

A report early this month said that Ravens GM Ozzie Newsome and head coach John Harbaugh wanted to sign Kaepernick after Joe Flacco went down with an injury, but were receiving “resistance” from owner Steve Bisciotti. Newsome then released a statement stating Bisciotti was not “blocking” anything, though he didn’t address the owner’s “resistance.”

In May, an AFC general manager told Bleacher Report’s Mike Freeman 60% of the NFL’s owners “genuinely hate” Kaepernick. “They want nothing to do with him. They won’t move on.”

Despite all these public comments, Edelman said Kaepernick’s standing as a “fringe” quarterback makes a collusion claim harder.

But it still seems fishy when mediocre QBs like Mike Glennon, Mark Sanchez, Josh McCown and Geno Smith all got jobs this offseason while Kaepernick, who took the 49ers to the Super Bowl four years ago, is out of work.

“When you take this stand, there are repercussions,” Jenkins said. “He might not play again. I would hope that for him taking that stand was worth it. But, if he is to lose his job or career over this, I would hope that we wouldn’t let it happen that easily and there’s a legitimate fight that gets put up. But that’s got to start with him.”