Cardinals the right team to sign Kaepernick
Bidwill ownership carries legacy of social awareness
Greg Moore Columnist Arizona Republic USA TODAY NETWORK
The Arizona Cardinals should fulfill Donald Trump’s promise to “Make America Great Again” by signing Colin Kaepernick.
The nation’s most influential Twitter user said recently that he would have no problem with an NFL team picking up the ostracized quarterback “if he’s good enough.”
It was a stunning change of direction from a man who once called for team presidents to cut players who took a knee during the national anthem as a peaceful protest to police brutality against minorities.
The world has changed in the two years since Trump yelled “get that son of a bitch off the field … he’s fired!”
Trump’s guy Roy Moore (no relation to the guy writing this column) lost a Senate election in Alabama to a Democrat.
Kaepernick beat the NFL in a collusion lawsuit.
And Nike stuck by Kaepernick, even if he wasn’t on an NFL roster.
It’s created an opening for Cardinals team president Michael Bidwill and general manager Steve Keim to please the president and all of his supporters (even if there aren’t that many; after all, Trump did lose the popular election by nearly 3 million votes.)
They can also please Kaepernick and his supporters.
They can also do the right thing by football fans.
It’s a perfect storm.
A show of unity
Bidwill is the perfect team president to make this move.
In the early stages of the kneeling controversy, he stood arm-in-arm with his players and asked fans to do the same in a show of unity.
Furthermore, Jerry Jones, the Dallas Cowboys team president and general manager, locked arms with his players and took a knee before the anthem. It was a stunning show of respect and solidarity for a man who had been a prominent opponent of Kaepernick’s protest.
It was a clever, creative solution to a seemingly intractable problem. It’s one of the reasons Bidwill is held in high regard by Cardinals fans.
Bidwill, last offseason, was presented with the Paul Tagliabue Award from the Fritz Pollard Alliance. It was an honor for integrity and leadership on issues of diversity.
“The Bidwill family has always done the right thing on issues of equality,” John Wooten, the organization’s president said in a statement.
There’s no NFL executive better positioned to make this move.
And there’s no NFL team for which it makes more sense.
The Cardinals have used three quarterbacks in each of the past three seasons, and while the offensive line should be better this year, it’s not unreasonable to think that Kyler Murray and Brett Hundley could each miss time for one reason or another.
Fewer than half of the quarterbacks in the league started all 16 games last year.
The Cardinals’ reserve signal callers, Charles Kanoff and Drew Anderson, might be fine players one day, but neither is as accomplished as Kaepernick, who has a similar skillset to Murray in that he can throw and run.
(As a formality for those honorbound to pretend like Kaepernick can’t play, here’s a brief summary of his qualifications: He took the 49ers to a Super Bowl and almost engineered a 22-point second-half comeback against the Ravens.)
No serious doubt
In the event that the Cardinals need to play a third quarterback (and who knows, maybe he even pushes Hundley for the backup job) it would be good if they didn’t have to scrap their entire offensive system to accommodate a pocket passer or scale things down to make it easier on an untested player such as Kanoff or Anderson.
There’s no doubt whether Kaepernick can play. He said recently on Twitter that he’s been working out and remains ready for a shot. “5 am. 5 days a week. 3 years. Still ready,” the post read.
Trump was then asked whether he’d support Kaepernick’s return to the NFL.
“I’d like to see it,” Trump said. “Frankly, I’d love to see Kaepernick come in if he’s good enough.”
A real question is whether Kaepernick would accept an invitation to camp from Arizona or any other franchise.
(A request for comment from Kaepernick’s lawyers wasn’t immediately answered. Nor was a request to speak with Cardinals executives Michael Bidwill and Steve Keim.)
Kaepernick fought the system and won. He forced a conversation on police brutality that’s led to action from grassroots community organizers around the nation and lawmakers in the California Statehouse.
He cleared a path for NFL Hall of Famers Ed Reed and Champ Bailey to speak out against racial injustice.
And the NFL, itself, has started the Inspire Change initiative to make things better in minority communities.
Assuming he’s open to it, here’s hoping the Cardinals make the next move toward unity and fairness — the promises of which have always made America great and can make America great again — and get Kaepernick into camp.