Wednesday, September 13, 2017

NFL: L'Affair au Kaepernick.

Interesting read today on Yahoo! Sports regarding why Kaepernick is currently sitting at home....

Two logical spots for Kaepernick and even THOSE don't make sense. Jay Hart, Yahoo! Sports

The author pretty much rules out a team wanting to bring Mr. Kaepernick in as a back-up (wise), he's too much distraction for almost zero impact. This is not about racism, it's about running a business.

He then analyzes every team, in brief, to determine if Kaepernick would be an upgrade for them at QB.  He narrows it down to two teams, the Colts and the Jets. I disagree with the author on the Colts however IF they believe Luck is coming back soon.  Because if that's the case then you would basically be signing Kaepernick as a backup who is going to play short-term. Not worth it. Even IF they don't think Luck is coming back they just gave up something to get Jacoby Brissett. They would at least want to see how that investment pays off.

The problem with the entire situation surrounding Mssr. Kaep is that the crux of the issue has been flooded under by our lesser demons.  Kaep's being on a roster or not has nothing to do with his playing ability, clearly he can still play, but everything to do with both fan-reaction and his personal actions.  And I'm not speaking about the anthem protests.

The author of the piece mentions this, but it's largely glossed over that Kaepernick, or his partner, have spent a lot of time on Twitter insulting either prospective employers, the police, or a majority of American society.  At some point there becomes a difference between being an activist, and just shouting a lot to generate re-tweets, snarky responses or to increase your partner's listener count on their radio show.

At some point you have to realize that it's unwise to publicly call prospective employers racists if you want to be gainfully employed by them.  And while I'm sympathetic to Mr. Kaepernick's protests, and the reasons behind it, I'm not much of a fan of trying to Twitter shame everyone who disagrees with me.  Kaepernick seems to be more interested in doing this than in actually getting paid to play tackle football.

This doesn't mean that he's not physically trying, by all accounts he's working out every day, staying in shape, but mentally I feel as if even he's thrown in the towel and has decided that there's more attention to be gained continuing to cast stones at the league than actually being a part of it.

One thing that DID bug me even worse was the 49ers fan account trying to shame all of the other fan-bases because they didn't sign Kaepernick when their team was unwilling to do so and was the team that released him and created this mess in the first place. No one likes the person who spills their drink and then chastises everyone else for not cleaning it up Niners Nation. Nobody.

I truly hope that Colin Kaepernick can find a job playing for the NFL at some time in the future, and I hope that he continues his activism. I hope that he can find a balance between the two.

Given recent events however I'm starting to doubt he ever does.  Which is a little disappointing because not only was he fun to watch, but I think that some of his points have real merit and society could benefit from having them in a public forum.

The background noise on this has become deafening.  I'm not sure that's reversible.

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