UNDER THE GUN
KEY NFL OWNERS MUST SURRENDER EMAIL, CELL RECORDS IN KAEPERNICK COLLUSION PROBE
NFL OUTCAST Colin Kaepernick is ready to huddle up with some of the league’s most powerful and petulant owners as his collusion case against the league moves forward.
The unemployed quarterback received the go-ahead to question at least five NFL owners, including two of the league’s most ardent opponents of the kneeling protests: Jerry Jones of the Cowboys and Bob McNair of the Texans.
Patriots owner Robert Kraft, Seahawks owner Paul Allen and Kaepernick’s old boss Jed York of the 49ers were also due for depositions in Kaepernick’s grievance against the league, according to ESPN and ABC News.
And the owners will be asked to surrender all emails and cell phone records in connection with Kaepernick’s inability to land on an NFL roster so far this season.
Baltimore Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti was asked to turn over discovery items such as phone or email correspondence, according to a report in USA Today.
The Ravens appeared the likeliest team to sign Kaepernick at one point before backing off amid a public backlash.
The complaint from Kaepernick also named NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, who was not mentioned as an immediate target for a grilling by the QB’s lawyers.
The NFL, on Kaepernick’s 30th birthday, declined any comment on the reports. A call to Mark Geragos, an attorney for Kaepernick, was not returned Friday.
But according to the ABC story, the owners selected by the Kaepernick legal team were chosen based on their public comments about the one-time San Francisco star or the NFL’s ongoing sideline protests.
Jones and Kraft are among the league’s most influential owners, while McNair recently created a stir with his comments that league officials couldn’t let “the inmates run the prison” — a reference to players taking a knee during the national anthem.
McNair was forced to publicly apologize after Houston players expressed their outrage at what they viewed as a racist remark equating the athletes with criminals.
Jones, the longtime Cowboys head honcho, had threatened to bench any of his players who joined in the protest. And Kraft, while supporting his players, has said it was “very important to respect our flag and our anthem.”
Kraft also declared publicly that he never heard anyone discuss a plan to keep Kaepernick on the sidelines this year. In 2016, the quarterback threw 16 touchdowns and four interceptions for the woeful Niners.
The reports, without mentioning names, said other NFL owners, teams and league officials will also sit for depositions.
Kaepernick, who started the kneeling last year as a protest against police brutality directed at black people, has not found a spot on any NFL roster since cutting ties with the San Francisco 49ers earlier this year.
He opted out of his contract with the team in March.
Last month, he filed a grievance against the NFL’s 32 owners, charging them with colluding to keep him sidelined as payback for his protests.
“Colin Kaepernick’s goal has always been, and remains, to simply be treated fairly by the league he performed at the highest level for and to return to the football playing field,” Geragos said after the Oct. 15 filing.
The furor over the protest appeared to die down until the flames were fanned by President Trump, who described the mostly African-American players taking a knee as “sons of b-----s.”
Kaepernick’s name has surfaced repeatedly since September as a number of star quarterbacks went down to injury: Carson Palmer of Arizona, Aaron Rodgers of Green Bay and, most recently, DeShaun Watson of Houston.
The Indianapolis Colts finally placed star QB Andrew Luck on injured reserve after playing the first half of the season without their young star.