The NFL needs to get Colin Kaepernick playing football again, or else
- The former quarterback won his media war with the NFL. Now the league needs to do the right thing and find him a team
- The 31-year-old still has a few years left where he could contribute on the field, and everyone could benefit from his return
This doesn’t get said too often, but it happened: Colin Kaepernick beat the National Football League.
The behemoth corporation, one of the most powerful professional sports leagues in the world, which runs itself like an unflinching, monstrous war machine, lost a PR battle with a soft-spoken 31-year-old Milwaukee, Wisconsin native who has become a symbol for racial inequality.
This week, Kaepernick and former teammate Eric Reid settled a collusion complaint with the NFL dating back to 2016 when the quarterback knelt during the national anthem in protest against social injustice in the United States.
Money was not disclosed, but it is largely believed the NFL’s hand was forced as damming evidence was soon to be made public if the case went to court, smearing reputations of league officials, owners and coaches who conspired to keep the African-American on the sidelines as a repercussion for taking a knee during The Star-Spangled Banner.
Now the dust has settled, where does this story head? Hopefully in one direction, with Kaepernick pulling a jersey over his shoulders and donning a logo-adorned helmet.
Kaepernick has stated through his agent he wants to return, and there are a few teams interested. The Carolina Panthers, who signed Reid last September, have an obvious issue at the quarterback position.
Starter Cam Newton just went under the knife to repair a badly damaged shoulder, and Kaepernick plays a similar style to the 2015 MVP.
The NFL needs to find a way to spin this in its direction if it wants to save any face at all. Every day Kaepernick sits by his phone waiting for a call is another bad press day for the league. If he suits up, it’s not all red roses and beaming sunshine, but at least the issue jumps from its stasis.
While no one knows for sure, one can imagine Kaepernick will not continue to kneel during the anthem if he is picked up by a team given it is pretty clear he has made his point. Stranger things have happened, though.
One may also assume if he is part of an NFL organisation, he will stick to football in interviews and do his best to deflect, and parade the “let’s all move on” mantra given he probably signed a pretty robust non-disclosure agreement anyway.
Where does that leave us? There are a few likely scenarios, and it is going to be interesting to see which one plays out over the next few months as the 2019 season kicks off in September.
One: no one signs Kaepernick and he continues to draw attention to the cause he first started kneeling for in the first place, and the NFL gets its already tarnished image dragged through the mud daily.
Winners? Nobody really as Kaepernick has said his goal is to play football again, and I don’t think anyone can blame the guy.
Two: Kaepernick signs with a team, and although he doesn’t blow everyone’s socks off with a rousing comeback for the ages, he gets some snaps, maybe adds some wins to his stats sheet, and the issue gets muted, taking a back seat to other NFL stories.
Winners? Kaepernick, and yes, the NFL, as having him in jersey but not drawing a lot of attention is probably the best the league can hope for, if you are rooting for them (which almost no one is, except maybe the president of the United States and some diehard red state Republicans).
Three: Kaepernick signs with a team, nabs the starting role and plays like he did in 2012-13 with the San Francisco 49ers, scrambling and gunning like the mobile pass-run beast he was.
If so, the league will once again take some egg to the face. Kaepernick’s play will speak louder than words, and the wax-poetic headlines will write themselves.
I can already see the Hollywood script hastily penned and the A-list celebrities lining up to play the title role. My vote goes to Anthony Mackie, although I have no idea if he knows how to toss a pigskin or drop back into the pocket.
To get behind Kaepernick is to get behind social progress.
His gesture was enormously valiant, sacrificing his career much like Muhammad Ali did during the Vietnam war, to make a poignant statement on vital current affairs. The NFL needs to recognise that once again, it dropped the ball.
Time to let Kaepernick pick it up.
