Would Broncos Country sign off on Kaep signing?
Shut up and play? No way. Broncos linebacker Brandon Marshall refuses to be defined solely by the No. 54 on his uniform. He won’t stick just to sports.
Football, insisted Marshall, “is just what we do. This is not who we are.”
But it’s a good thing Marshall is a linebacker and not a quarterback, or I’m afraid he might be blackballed from the NFL, the same as his friend Colin Kaepernick.
Kaepernick used to be a quarterback, one good enough to throw 72 career touchdown passes and start in a Super Bowl during six seasons with the San Francisco 49ers. Now Kaepernick is a can kicked between Americans hurling insults at each other about police brutality or Confederate statues. He’s unemployed, a football martyr exiled from the game because he refused to stand for the national anthem.
“I like that Kaep is doing this because this is who he is. It makes him feel good; he knows he’s making a difference and it’s almost like he sacrificed his career unintentionally for it,” Marshall said Thursday. “But in 10, 15 years, people are going to say: ‘You know what, that’s a stand-up dude right there.’ Kaep, he’s a special individual. People just don’t try to see it right now.”
A franchise owner pays his quarterback to lead TD drives, not social change. The blackballing of Kaepernick, however, is also the NFL’s not-sosubtle way of telling players to shut up and play.
Despite commissioner Roger Goodell’s recent praise for players that protest social injustice, talk is cheap. Money is the hammer NFL owners hold over the head of their employees, which is why Broncos wide receiver Demaryius Thomas doesn’t dare raise a ruckus. Asked if he had considered taking part in an anthem protest, Thomas replied with a wary eye over his shoulder for Broncos general manager John Elway.
“I just worry about doing my job, trying to get wins,” Thomas said. “There’s a lot going on in this world, stuff I can’t handle. As a group, I think a lot of guys in the league can do something about it. But I really haven’t done it, because that would just bring more stuff to our team, and from being here a long time, I know Mr. Elway doesn’t like those type of
things.”
So you’re telling me the Broncos gave a tryout to Jamaal Charles, a 30-year-old running back so battered he wore a knee brace throughout training camp, but the risk of bringing Kaepernick to Denver is too great for a franchise with 75,000 customers on the waiting list for season tickets?
From the first minute he walked in the locker room, Kaepernick would be no worse than the second-best quarterback on the team. The Broncos don’t yet trust Paxton Lynch to win a game that counts in the stand- ings, and starter Trevor Siemian is physically fragile. Kaepernick has won 32 regular-season games, and four more in the playoffs. Could he help Denver? No doubt.
But I get it. Kaepernick failed to reach a satisfactory financial agreement with Elway when the Broncos went looking to replace Peyton Manning in 2016. And the NFL is tolerant of dissenting voices, so long as it doesn’t adversely impact profits. A linebacker can have a social conscience, but a quarterback better stay focused on the X’s and O’s.
It warms Marshall’s heart that more players are “woke” and willing to take a stand, especially in light of the recent violence in Charlottesville, Va. While hesitant to say if his protest against the anthem will be renewed this season, he’s unafraid of any backlash that might be directed at him by angry fans.
“They say: ‘Just play football. That’s what you do.’ They act like we’re football players 24/7, all day, every day just all about ball,” Marshall said. “I’m a human being. I have opinions. I have passions. I have things I would like to do. So I’m not just a football player.”
The Broncos open the season at home on Sept. 11, a date raw with emotion for all Americans. Kneeling during the anthem on 9/11 would undoubtedly reopen old wounds. But the last thing I want is for Marshall to shut up and play. His message of hope, with the firm belief we all can make a difference, is too strong to be silenced.
Here’s my humble suggestion and fondest wish:
No matter how brave and committed Marshall might be, he needs his brothers in the Denver locker room to join in a powerful show of unity. With Von Miller and Siemian standing alongside him, locked arm-in-arm, raising their hands together to the brilliant Colorado sky, they can demonstrate that here in Broncos Country, we realize that only way to beat hate and injustice is through cooperation and love.