Kaepernick Anonymous Owners Say He Will Never Play Again
Dressed in a blueish long-sleeve shirt and seated in the basement of his suburban home outside New York City, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell spoke in a subdued voice on camera and admitted that the league had poorly mishandled player activism.
"We, the National Football League, admit we were incorrect for not listening to NFL players earlier and encourage all to speak out and peacefully protest," Goodell said in the video, which was posted June 5.
Goodell's video statements came on the heels of another viral video, posted the day before, which featured prominent Black NFL players, including Patrick Mahomes, quarterback for the Super Basin champion Kansas City Chiefs, condemning racism and advocating for the Blackness Lives Matter motion.
And while both videos referred to George Floyd, the Black man who died in police custody in Minneapolis on May 25 — a disturbing incident caught on video in which an officer held his knee on Floyd's neck for more than eight minutes, prompting protests effectually the earth — neither Goodell nor the NFL players fabricated any mention of Colin Kaepernick.
It was Kaepernick, the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback who starred in the 2013 Super Bowl, who in 2022 began kneeling during the national canticle. Kaepernick said numerous times then that he was protesting "systematic oppression" and police force brutality. His activism sparked other NFL players to follow his lead that flavor, while President Donald Trump lambasted NFL players who knelt, calling them "sons of bitches" and joking that owners should burn players who take a knee.
Three and a half years after he last threw a football game in a real game, Kaepernick, 32, remains a free agent and without a job. Kaepernick opted out of his contract with the Niners in 2022 — a new front part government said Kaepernick would be released — but he hasn't landed with a team since. He reached a confidential settlement last year afterward he filed a grievance against the NFL, accusing the league of bunco. Even after Goodell and the league did a 180-caste plough with the video statement in support of players who want to protest, people in NFL and other football circles wonder whether Kaepernick will ever once more wear an NFL jersey.
"And you @nflcommish STILL have @Kaepernick7 blackballed for peacefully protesting," Nessa Diab, Kaepernick's girlfriend, tweeted on her official business relationship the day of Goodell's video.
Can Kaepernick still compete at an elite level afterwards a three-plus year layoff? Or is that a convenient excuse that teams use considering they are reluctant to sign him?
"Any player that has e'er come against that [NFL] shield has lost," said a retired NFL veteran who asked for anonymity for fear of reprisal by the league. "It'south very deplorable. It's horrible the way the league treats former players. Guys that built that brand and built that game gave the league something that [information technology] can sell for a profit."
Seattle Seahawks motorbus Pete Carroll told reporters on a briefing call Thursday that he has regrets about non having signed Kaepernick in 2017, and he added that he had received a call from at least i squad that seemed to express interest in Kaepernick. Carroll wouldn't name the club.
"I regret that nosotros weren't the one mode back when that merely did it just to do information technology, even though I thought that information technology wasn't the right fit, necessarily, for us at the time," Carroll said. "The reason information technology wasn't the correct fit is because I held him in such a high regard I didn't see him every bit a fill-in quarterback, and I didn't desire to put him in that situation" behind Russell Wilson, the Seahawks' Super Bowl-winning starting quarterback.
Marker Geragos, Kaepernick's attorney in the collusion grievance, couldn't be reached for comment, and Jeff Nalley, the quarterback's agent, didn't return requests for comment. Only another high-profile football game agent, Drew Rosenhaus, told NBC News that it would be in the NFL'southward best interest to have Kaepernick playing for an NFL squad once more.
"I think he should get signed. I think he will go signed. It's really of import for the NFL to give him a adventure," said Rosenhaus, who'due south been an amanuensis for over three decades representing big-name players similar Plaxico Burress and Terrell Owens.
"That would exist great for the league at this juncture," Rosenhaus said. "I retrieve information technology would reverberate very well on everything that Kaepernick has stood up for over the final several years. He was really ahead of his time with a lot of the things he was saying. If you lot play many of his interviews years ago, they're spot on today."
Goodell said in his video that he plans to achieve out to players and others going frontwards for a "better and more united NFL family." A league spokesman said in an email that Goodell regularly talks with current and former players and that Goodell has already "contacted a number of players" since the video posted.
"Nosotros consider conversations with players private, and so I won't be able to provide names," the league spokesman said.
The NFL appear concluding week that information technology would commit $250 one thousand thousand over 10 years for social justice programs and initiatives. Earlier the 2022 season, the NFL and the players' union reached an understanding that players and personnel who didn't wish to stand during the anthem could remain in the locker room. No players have been disciplined for continuing to kneel on the field, and that policy will continue when the 2022 season starts.
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When asked whether Kaepernick could still compete at an elite level after a lengthy layoff, Rosenhaus said the bigger issue is for a team to give him another chance.
"Sign him. Bring him to training military camp and give him a take a chance to compete like everybody else. He deserves that," Rosenhaus said. "If he is not skillful plenty on the football field — we'll never know unless he gets a chance. He certainly was forced into retirement in his prime. He'due south still young enough, in my opinion, even with the time off, that he can still be a very solid player in this league. People should rally around him in the NFL, embrace him right now. I of the 32 teams really needs to footstep upward."
Richard Sherman, a cornerback for the 49ers, told San Francisco Bay Area reporters on a video call last week that Kaepernick deserves a task in the NFL, but he said he doesn't make those decisions. The people who do are the ones who should provide transparency.
"I can want him to have a chore and I tin can think he deserves a task as much every bit anybody," Sherman said. "He showed he could play in this league. I would have to be one of the decision-makers who didn't give him a task, and I'k not that person. I think that until those people are asked those difficult questions, we'll never become the answers."
During Floyd's funeral in Texas on Tuesday, the Rev. Al Sharpton referred to Goodell's video before offering a jab at the NFL commissioner. "Don't apologize. Requite Colin Kaepernick a job dorsum," said Sharpton, founder of the National Action Network and host of MSNBC's "PoliticsNation."
Rosenhaus said: "Information technology would be awesome if there was an NFL organization that was willing to give him a chance. I tin can't see any reason why someone wouldn't right now. He was a very good quarterback. There'south a shortage of good players at that position. It would go a long way on a lot of levels for the NFL to bring him dorsum in the fold and make him an of import part of the NFL."
Source: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/sports/after-nfl-admission-protests-does-colin-kaepernick-have-shot-playing-n1229121
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