EXPECT AN NFL TEAM TO SIGN KAEPERNICK
What the commissioner wants, he generally gets, and he would ‘encourage’ a signing
When NFL commissioner Roger Goodell says he would “encourage” a team to sign Colin Kaepernick, you can pretty much expect it’s going to happen.
Back in 2014, it was reported that the league encouraged a team to draft Missouri Tigers defensive end Michael Sam after the first openly gay player in the draft pool had slipped out of the rankings. The St. Louis Rams bit, taking him 249th of the 256 players drafted. It was the most exciting seventh-round pick in history. U.S. president Barack Obama publicly congratulated Sam, the Rams and the NFL for “taking an important step forward in our nation’s journey.”
When the Rams made him among their final training camp cuts, Goodell reportedly called around to persuade some team to put Sam on its practice squad. The Cowboys did, but released him a month and a half later.
With no other options, Sam headed north in 2015 to sign a two-year CFL deal with the Montreal Alouettes. He barely hung around two weeks before taking a leave of absence during camp because of “personal reasons.”
Upon returning, Sam sat out the first five games, then made his pro football debut on Aug. 7 against the Ottawa Redblacks. He did not make a tackle.
After that game, Sam left the team with what the Als called a sore back. He retired one week later, citing concerns with his mental health.
“It was really a last call, to go to the CFL,” he later said on The Dan Patrick Show. “I never really wanted to go to the CFL, but I did and committed to going.”
If the 32-year-old Kaepernick wants to play football bad enough and he can’t find steady work in the NFL, he has the speed and skill set to be a very good CFL quarterback.
MAKING BIG BUCKS
Why did the San Francisco 49ers give Kyle Shanahan a six-year contract extension on Tuesday, when he already had three years left on his deal? Why did they decide now to make Shanahan one of the five highest paid coaches in the league?
Maybe because the Carolina Panthers made Matt Rhule the sixth-highest paid coach in the league five months ago, and he hasn’t worked the sidelines of a single NFL game? New Panthers owner David Tepper was not a popular fellow when he gave Rhule, a successful college coach, a seven-year deal for US$62 million, moving him ahead of guys on the pay scale with far more impressive resumés.
Meanwhile, Shanahan guided the 49ers to a 6-10 finish his first year and a 4-12 mark his second before a 13-3 record and getting them to the big game, only to lose to Andy Reid’s Kansas City Chiefs last February. Now Shanahan, who was reportedly making $5 million last year, earns $1 million per season more than Reid, a head coach for 21 years, and Mike Tomlin, who like Reid has a Super Bowl and a conference championship and not a single losing season in 13 years as coach of the Steelers. It doesn’t seem right.
Here are the top paid coaches in the NFL, per CBS Sports.
1. Bill Belichick (Patriots)
$12 million
2. Pete Carroll (Seahawks)
$11 million
3. Jon Gruden (Raiders)
$10 million
4. Sean Payton (Saints)
$9.8 million
T5. John Harbaugh (Ravens) $9 million
T5. Kyle Shanahan (49ers) $9 million
T7. Matt Rhule (Panthers)
$8.5 million
T7. Sean Mcvay (Rams)
$8.5 million
T9. Mike Tomlin (Steelers) $8 million
T9. Dan Quinn (Falcons) $8 million
T9. Andy Reid (Chiefs) $8 million
TONE DEAF
While COVID-19 numbers go up in some of their cities — and one of their star players (Ezekiel Elliott) is among the latest to test positive — the NFL still fantasizes about playing in front of full stadiums in September.
“It would feel like practice, but a very, very serious practice that counts,” Baltimore Ravens quarterback and reigning league MVP Lamar Jackson told Slow News Day on Theringer.com when asked about his thoughts on playing in front of no fans. “I would be disappointed because I want to see the faces, I want to see people pumped up. The crowd brings energy. We need the noise.”
But Jackson doesn’t want enhanced audio on TV broadcasts so viewers at home could hear what the players are saying. That wouldn’t be right, he says.
“We’re playing football, we don’t need everybody on the field with us,” said Jackson. “We’ve got to focus on what’s in front of us. Trying to win. Not being on TV.”
Making the rounds as EA Sports was revealing him as its Madden 21 cover guy, Jackson told Load Management podcast the 14-2 Ravens were guilty of underestimating the 9-7 Titans, who defeated them 28-12 in the divisional playoff last year. This season, Jackson said the Ravens are focused only on winning Week 1, when they face Cleveland. “We’re taking it one game at a time, not peeking ahead,” said Jackson. “That’s what happened in the playoffs and we end up losing ... You can’t underestimate no team, no opponent, and that’s what we did.”