I don’t particularly care much about Colin Kaepernick. I thought he was arrogant, but more importantly he played for the 49ers and I think all San Francisco sports teams have the most entitled and insufferable sports fans on the planet, therefore I dislike them. But there’s no denying his talent; he’s a pretty capable quarterback with a decent arm, good instincts and great mobility. And then there’s the 2012 season where he basically put the entire franchise on his back and nearly single-handedly carried the franchise to a Super Bowl victory was nothing short of incredible, and a good indication of what kind of talent he was capable of unleashing.
And I’ll be the first to say that I wasn’t particularly keen on his decision to refuse to stand for the National Anthem, because I thought it was selfish and disrespectful, but ultimately as Americans, we have the right to choose to do things like such, regardless of what other think. Ultimately, it was such choices that have led to his blatant and obvious blackballing by the NFL, and at time I’m writing this, Colin Kaepernick has no team and has no job in the NFL.
The thing is, it’s not because there aren’t teams that don’t need capable quarterbacks; the Browns, Dolphins and especially the Jets come to mind. None of them truly have a QB that’s a lock to start the season, and there’s a litany of names being thrown around just those three teams; some, whom people have heard of, like Johnny Manziel and Robert Griffin III, some, nobody has heard of, like the guys all competing for the Jets’ starting job, and then there’s Jay Cutler who went from one accursed franchise, the Bears to another accursed franchise, the Dolphins.
Colin Kaepernick does not have a job, because the NFL has a personal problem with the man, and is letting it affect the professional fortunes of him, as well as any team that might benefit from the acquisition of an athlete like him.
This is not a good business practice, and the NFL is dumb for letting what ultimately amounts to a disagreement of opinions affect the ability to put the most capable talent onto rosters and produce the most competitive and entertaining teams on the field.
Instead, we have this day-in-and-day-out dogpiling onto Colin Kaepernick about why he’s unemployed and people trying to convince not just others, but themselves that he’s actually not a good player. There’s nobody on the planet that’s going to convince me that Christian Hackenburg (who?) or Josh McCown (he’s still in the NFL?) is capable of leading a team to more wins than Colin Kaepernick would be.
The bottom line is that it’s blatant and it’s embarrassing that the NFL is allowing this to happen. The Jets are pretty much a lock to lose 13 games at this point, and I’m not saying that Colin Kaepernick would get them into the playoffs, but he certainly would be a tremendous upgrade than their current options, and when the day is over, trying to win games is the goal of every single NFL team out there. But because he has very strong beliefs that there is racial inequality in the country, which is as abundantly clear as the existence of air, he’s going to be denied even the opportunity to play ball.
The NFL is stupid, and their bullshit witch-hunting has actually forced me to acknowledge Colin Kaepernick’s as a martyr to their stupidity.
