Kaepernick, McCaffrey getting pegged all wrong
It’s a question of character, and Colin Kaepernick and Christian McCaffrey come up short.
So say many judges in the court of public opinion.
To them, Kaepernick is a cop-and-soldier-hating hypocrite, and McCaffrey is a mefirst team deserter. I beg to differ. First McCaffrey, the Stanford superstar who opted out of the Sun Bowl in order to prepare for the draft and avoid possible injury that could end his NFL career before it starts.
Every year the NFL warmly welcomes college stars who beat up women and others, abuse drugs and/or bring a half-baked attitude to life and football. Hey, kids will be kids!
But McCaffrey lacks character because he bailed on a meaningless bowl game to protect the career he came to Stanford to prepare for? The problem with McCaffrey, then, is that he’s way too serious about NFL football.
By the way, McCaffrey was a splendid teammate, played with injuries and was a team leader and a shining role model for boys and girls everywhere, on and off the field.
But he deserted his brothers, so now some NFL teams will shun McCaffrey and draft highcharacter guys who never went to class and have no class.
Then there’s Kaepernick, a flawed messenger of a very important message. Has he tripped over his shoelaces a few times? Lord, yes. Exhibits A-C: the pig socks, the Castro shirt and especially the non-voting stance. So wrong. It’s almost as if Kaepernick was a rookie activist making stupid rookie mistakes.
But his underlying belief — that all of America would benefit from improved relations between police and minorities, and from diminished social inequality — still seems valid.
If Kaepernick is trying to save his NFL career by ending his kneel-down protest, note that the first time he sat out the anthem he was risking his career.
Had his 49ers’ teammates, coach or team CEO objected, Kaepernick’s NFL days would have ended in the snap of a finger. He was a second-stringer barely holding onto a job.
On many NFL team report cards, Kaepernick and McCaffrey get F’s in character. Good luck to you team builders on finding better guys.