NFL now paying for Kaepernick to go away
For nearly two years, NFL owners wanted Colin Kaepernick to shut up and go away.
Now they’re effectively paying him to do it.
What else are we to conclude from the surprising news that dropped Friday afternoon?
In a joint statement, the league and the lawyers for Kaepernick and safety Eric Reid — the two NFL players who effectively sparked the controversial 2016-17 anthem protest movement — announced the following:
“For the past several months, counsel for Mr. Kaepernick and Mr. Reid have engaged in an ongoing dialogue with representatives of the NFL. As a result of those discussions, the parties have decided to resolve the pending grievances. The resolution of this matter is subject to a confidentiality agreement so there will be no further comment by any party.”
As big-buzz out-of-court settlements generally go, the more embarrassing the secret, the more someone is willing to pay to keep it secret. In this case, the dots to be connected are so numerous, and so closely spaced, that one glance reveals the obvious final picture and renders the connecting exercise superfluous.
As background, Kaepernick quarterbacked the San Francisco 49ers to the Super Bowl in 2012 and to a second straight NFC championship game berth in 2013, before his quality of play and the level of talent surrounding him dissolved quickly from 2014-16.
Reid had been regarded from 2013-16 as one of the league’s better free safeties after being drafted in the first round in 2013.
The so-called, wrongly named “anthem protest” movement began in August 2016, when Kaepernick began not standing — at first sitting alone on the bench, then eventually kneeling on the sideline — while the pre-game national anthem played.
He said the idea was not to disrespect The Star Spangled Banner, the U.S. flag, the U.S. military or any other elemental emblem of patriotic love south of the border. Rather, he and a growing number of player protesters said, the kneel-downs were intended to bring wider awareness to the deplorable social, criminal and racial injustices that continue to torment people of colour in America.
Following his first start of the 2016 season, in October in Buffalo, Kaepernick said the following in answer to those who insisted his protests were un-American:
“I don’t understand what’s un-American about fighting for liberty and justice for everybody, for the equality that this country says it stands for,” Kaepernick said. “To me, I see it as very patriotic and American to uphold the United States to the standards that it says it lives by. That’s something that needs to be addressed.
“Until (we) as people recognize and address that some of us have privileges and some of us don’t, and some of us are able to do certain things without consequences, and others of us can’t, (things won’t change).
“Me, as a black man that plays football and is considered a celebrity — I’m treated differently than a black man that’s working 9-to-5 in the ’hood. And that’s just the reality of it. And it shouldn’t be.”
Twelve months later, in October 2017, Reid joined Kaepernick in filing a grievance against the NFL. They charged orchestrated collusion, after no teams had signed Kaepernick following the 2016 season.
Over the past year, many NFL executives and owners — including commissioner Roger Goodell and New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft — were deposed as the grievance inched along, and some even reportedly were asked to turn over their cellphones, as the arbitrator sought evidence to prove or disprove the players’ charge.
Reports Friday said parties on both sides were preparing for final appearances before the arbitrator.
Kaepernick this year has shot down speculation and innuendo he doesn’t even want to play anymore; he does.
NFL executives and owners have steadfastly denied publicly that there ever has been anything approaching collusion to keep Kaepernick out of the league.
Reid played out the fifth and final option year of his rookie contract in San Francisco in 2017, in part, oddly, as a linebacker. He became a free agent last March. No NFL team signed him through training camp — when rosters swell from the in-season limit of 53 to 90. A player of Reid’s calibre ought to have received multiple offers.
Finally, the Carolina Panthers signed Reid last September. After an effective 2018 season the Panthers re-signed him earlier this week to a reported US$22million, three-year deal. The Panthers, it should be noted, were bought last spring by a socially conscious multibillionaire, David Tepper.
Meantime, Kaepernick remains unsigned since last playing with the San Francisco 49ers in 2016. Bottom line, know this: For Kaepernick and Reid by Friday to agree to forever bury deep into the ground any such potential ‘gotcha’ conversations among owners or league executives, or other possibly indicting NFL testimony revealed before the arbitrator; and for the league to agree to settle this matter with that duo before the arbitrator’s judgment could be rendered, complete with publicly released evidence; and for the league to agree to have the above “resolution” announced on a Friday afternoon before a long weekend of sorts in America, when the league never would so shield any announcement it deemed to contain a sliver of good news — tells you all you need to know about who won and who lost this case.
And who’s right, and who’s wrong.