The anti-American anthem protests might’ve done irreparable damage to the NFL.
While viewership and ad revenue sharply declined, Colin Kaepernick, the man who first protested, has been glamorized by the media for well over a year.
Kaepernick recently received yet another award and said some truly despicable things in the process.
Kaepernick received an award from Amnesty International for his radically anti-American stance.
In accepting the award, Kaepernick doubled down on his unpatriotic, race-baiting rhetoric.
From Deadline:
On Saturday, Amnesty International gave former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick its Ambassador of Conscience Award for his role in leading the national anthem protests. The ceremony took place in Amsterdam.
Kaepernick has been unable to find a job in the NFL since leaving the 49ers as a free agent…
[…]
In November 2017, Kaepernick filed a grievance against the NFL, alleging that NFL owners have colluded to keep him out of the league.
Kaepernick’s awards presenter on Saturday was Eric Reid, the ex-49ers defensive back who is also having a hard time finding work after becoming a free agent. Reid was one of the highest-profile kneelers during the national anthem last year.
The acceptance speech by Kaepernick ramped up the rhetoric. “Racialized oppression and dehumanization is woven into the very fabric of our nation – the effects of which can be seen in the lawful lynching of black and brown people by the police, and the mass incarceration of black and brown lives in the prison industrial complex,” Kaepernick said.
“How can you stand for the national anthem of a nation that preaches and propagates, ‘freedom and justice for all,’ that is so unjust to so many of the people living there?” he said at Saturday’s award ceremony.
Kaepernick’s statement was absurd, but par for the course when it comes to far-left neo-Marxist dogma. He attacks America for being unjust, even though he’d be hard-pressed to find a freer and more just society.
In the past, he praised Fidel Castro for his literacy program, yet overlooked decades of human rights abuses, public shamings of gay people and political dissidents, blackouts of unfavorable foreign press, and the restriction of Cubans to leave the island.
Yet America is the terrible nation.
This type of radical, unpatriotic sentiment, mixed with poor play on the field, has made Kaepernick near untouchable for an NFL team.
Former NFL quarterback and ESPN analyst Trent Dilfer summed up the Kaepernick saga well:
From Breitbart:
Former NFL quarterback Trent Dilfer discussed free agent Colin Kaepernick Wednesday on Fox Sports 1’s “Speak for Yourself,” explaining the activist quarterback has two knocks against him that are likely keeping him from being in the NFL at the age of 30 — his activism and most recent film from 2016 that shows “disastrous” play.
“An NFL organization doesn’t want an activist — they want a quarterback,” Dilfer, who played 13 years in the NFL, pointed out. “[Kaepernick] is viewed by the country more now as an activist than a quarterback. Right or wrong, that’s how he’s viewed.”
The NFL analyst continued, “His tape is bad. The last year of tape is bad. He had the yips. I’ve had the yips. I’ve had them throwing and I’ve had them putting. He couldn’t throw it from here to the camera towards the end accurately. He was so locked up as a quarterback. … The tape doesn’t lie. And to get through the activist part to the football part, you then have to battle that last year of tape — which isn’t very good either.”
Dilfer has offered a helping hand to Kaepernick in the past and enthusiastically praised him when he appeared to have made progress as a pocket passer at the beginning of the 2015 season (Kaepernick quickly regressed and was benched), so Dilfer isn’t a bitter analyst with an axe to grind.
But if an ally who likes Kaepernick will openly say his tape was “disastrous,” one can only wonder what a skeptical general manager or coach would say behind closed doors.