Giants feel for Kaep
Happy he got workout, sorry it went sour
Colin Kaepernick still can play football and still wants to play football. He finally received an opportunity to prove both. And even if he did sound angry in Saturday’s postworkout statement, wouldn’t you be frustrated, too?
Giants players had these reactions and more when polled by the Daily News on Wednesday for their opinion on the blackballed quarterback’s weekend workout in Georgia. It is a nuanced and complicated situation, and plenty of thoughtful Giants treated it as such.
Linebacker Deone Bucannon, for example, said the fact Kaepernick was physically prepared to perform at an NFL level in a workout he’d only found out about last Tuesday was proof he is serious about playing again. Kaepernick hasn’t played in the league since 2016.
“It’s three years that he’s been out, right?” Buccannon said. “And he did that workout and it’s not like he’s out there and out of shape. He’s out there and he’s throwing the ball well from the clips I’ve seen. So that means he’s been working all those three years, staying in shape. That takes a lot. That takes dedication. So based on what I see, I can’t not support that.”
Corner Antonio Hamilton said Kaepernick’s insistence on maximum exposure to more media and his own video teams was a critical factor in protecting the player, too.
Kaepernick’s refusal to sign an unprecedented NFL liability waiver was the primary reason for the lastminute change of location of his workout. But transparency also prompted him to move it 60 miles south from Falcons’ facility in Flowery Branch to Charles R. Drew High School, south of downtown Atlanta in Riverdale.
“He wanted to change it because he wanted to open it up to the public so everybody could see it,” Hamilton said. “I’ll just put it like this: Some people can do certain things with you when you’re behind closed doors when nobody can see. When it’s out in the open, everybody gets the opportunity to say, ‘Oh hey, maybe he does suck,’ or ‘Hey, maybe he can still throw.’ So you don’t want to just do it privately.”
The late change of venue, unfortunately, affected how many NFL teams could see Kaepernick’s workout in person. The league said there were 25 teams in attendance at the Falcons’ facility, but only seven made it to the high school: the Chiefs, Eagles, Lions, Jets, 49ers, Titans, and Washington.
The Giants were one of the teams left in the lurch. They sent a scout to the originally scheduled workout, but he couldn’t make it to the new location.
Kaepernick, 32, did not seem to help his cause to get signed by an NFL team, either, by delivering a