Colin Kaepernick has officially become a thorn in the NFL’s side.
Kaepernick has become a divisive sports figure sincefirst kneeling for the National Anthem.
And now the NFL is in deep trouble because of a new report about the jobless quarterback.
Kaepernick seems to have a stranglehold on the NFL.
The embattled quarterback is officially suing the NFL for collusion for keeping him out of the league – meaning he believes the league and team owners met specifically to discuss how to deliberately keep him out.
Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio said on NBC Sports radio’s The Dan Patrick Show, that he believes there is a “quiet confidence” from Kaepernick’s camp that they’ll be able to prove collusion in their upcoming court case.
Florio said, “There’s a quiet confidence from Kaepernick’s perspective that they’re getting the bricks that they’re putting in place one at a time to eventually prove that there was coordination among the teams.
And really, I think the league office was the main conduit for getting the message out to the teams that a guy like Colin Kaepernick is bad for business. And if you have that kind of coordination, you have a collusion violation.”
But then a new report was released on Monday allegedly proving that there was, indeed, collusion against Kaepernick.
That report showed that many coaches believed Kaepernick was starting quarterback potential.
Breitbart reports:
According to a report from Pro Football Talk, new documents about Colin Kaepernick’s playing ability shows that coaches think he could be a starting quarterback. Bolstering his claim that the NFL ignored him based on his politics, not his playing ability.
Claims from a source inside the NFL to Pro Football Talk, say that the league’s free-agency evaluation reports insist that Colin Kaepernick is a good enough player to be a starting QB.
In fact, the documents reportedly show that today, even after he has been out of play for an entire season, Kaepernick is rated as a possible starter, Sporting News reported.
If true, the report would tend to undermine claims by some owners and coaches that Kaepernick has been passed over based on football-only reasons.
The former San Francisco 49er and original anthem protester, has charged that the NFL “colluded” in secret and “coordinated” amongst each other to keep him out of the league.
He has remained unsigned since he turned free agent at the end of the 2016 season.
Still, despite these alleged internal report, documents to which Kaepernick and his counsel surely have access, the “collusion” claim is not a lock.
As Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio noted, the question becomes, “whether Kaepernick and his lawyers can prove coordination among the teams and/or through the league office in connection with the decision to steer clear of Kaepernick based on his role at the forefront of protests that occurred during the national anthem.”
The thing that’s bothersome about all this is that it shouldn’t be about whether Kaepernick is capable of being an NFL starter.
You could argue that Johnny “football” Manziel is technically “capable” of the same thing.
No, these team owners and business owners needed to make the decision that was best for their franchise and profitability.
If they had hired Kaepernick, even as a backup quarterback, they were undoubtedly going to have to deal with boycotts.
That’s just a fact.