Does Colin Kaepernick’s ‘league-wide’ tryout feel shady? The answer is yes, because it is.
On Saturday in Atlanta, former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick will be center stage for the first time in almost three years as he attempts to make a long-awaited return to the NFL.
Here we are in November and the NFL is scheduling a league-wide combine on a Saturday, which isn’t typical of how free-agent signings work. Usually, free-agent workouts take place on Tuesday, when teams are typically off.
What adds to the stench of this is that all 32 teams in the league have had three years — a lengthy three years — to do their due diligence on Kaepernick, check his commitment to football and see if he was keeping in shape.
You don’t need a closed-door, staged event to put those questions to bed. If you did, it may be time to reevaluate your free-agent scouting practices.
After six seasons with the 49ers, Kaepernick, 32, has been out of the league since 2016, the year he began kneeling during the pregame national anthem as a protest against police brutality and racial injustice.
As NFL Network’s Michael Silver lays out in an informative and lengthy Twitter thread, this event is ripe and should rightfully be met with skepticism.
Silver isn’t the only one with this view. Former teammate and strong Kaepernick supporter Eric Reid, who also participated in kneeling during the anthem, is questioning the league’s actions as well.
Reid, who is now with the Carolina Panthers, shared his thoughts with The Athletic:
“At this point I’ll believe it when I see it. At this point it feels like a PR stunt, being that it’s on a Saturday. What decision-makers are going to be able to attend that workout? The other strange thing is I saw that there was a report that teams were interested in Colin (previously). But they reached out to the league about it. That’s strange. So we’ll see what happens. But they reached out to the league about it. That’s strange. So we’ll see what happens.”
Jay-Z’s “Influence”
In August, famed rapper-turned mogul Jay-Z’s company Roc Nation was brought in by the NFL into a partnership as part of its cultural change initiative.
Many have assumed that Jay-Z’s partnership with the league would be a vehicle to get Kaepernick back in the league. One of the reasons being is that Jay-Z was a staunch supporter of Kaepernick’s and at one time even persuaded artists to not participate in NFL-related events.
It is now November and Kaepernick is just now getting a “serious” look from the NFL, so we can put any type of Jay-Z influence helping Kaepernick to bed. If Jay-Z carried any significant weight with the league, like he allegedly does, Kaepernick would’ve been on a roster already.
What about Saturday’s combine/tryout?
Initially, the NFL was going to release a list of teams and executives that were going to be in attendance at the tryout but that was nixed.
Thanks to great reporting from ESPN and NFL Network, we do know that at least 11 teams have told various league sources they will be in attendance.
The longer this goes on, the longer the NFL reveals this “good faith effort” is to cover its own backside after the collusion settlement with Kaepernick and Reid. It is becoming increasingly clear that the NFL is looking to stack the deck against Kaepernick, and Saturday’s events are already a loss.
The NFL can go ahead and say that they “tried,” but the continued fumbling and bumbling efforts from the league look worse and worse as we get closer to zero hour. Less than 48 hours before the event, the NFL’s PR wing sent out this tweet regarding Saturday’s activities.
Either the NFL treats Colin Kaepernick with the respect due a former quarterback who’s played in a Super Bowl or cancel it if none of the 32 teams that have been invited have no intention to sign him after Saturday’s workout.
This story was originally published November 15, 2019 at 6:00 AM.
