Kaepernick Won. The NFL Lost.
It doesn’t matter how much he made from the settlement announced on Friday; he bested the league.
JEMELE HILLFEB 17, 2019
LOREN ELLIOTT / REUTERS
Technically, Colin Kaepernick withdrew his collusion case. Technically, the NFL did not admit that it conspired to blackball Kaepernick from the league after he began taking a knee during the national anthem to protest racial injustice. But nontechnically speaking, the NFL lost. Massively.
For one, the depositions showed just how much league owners were petrified of President Donald Trump, who had loudly criticized the player protests. According to The Wall Street Journal, Jerry Jones, who owns the Dallas Cowboys, testified in a deposition that the president had told him in a phone conversation, “This is a very winning, strong issue for me,” and “Tell everybody you can’t win this one. This one lifts me.”
Trump felt that public sentiment was on his side when it came to the player protests, and was warning that he would not back off. That conversation with Jones, and separate ones with the Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross and the New England Patriots owner Bob Kraft, suggested that the league was allowing their fear of Trump to influence how it dealt with Kaepernick and the other protesters.
Had Kaepernick’s case gone further, there was no question that more sensitive and damaging information would have come out. Who knows what was said about Kaepernick or other players in texts and emails. Even if Kaepernick had lost the case, the NFL would have been left with a significant mess.
Some are already criticizing Kaepernick for settling, not realizing how rare it is to see the NFL backed into a corner, especially by a player. Tom Brady, arguably the greatest quarterback ever, couldn’t beat the NFL in court. Even he eventually had to accept his four-game suspension for Deflategate in 2016.
That Kaepernick was the one to make the NFL eat crow is a special kind of karma. This is just punishment because the league incompetently handled the player protests, starting with Kaepernick’s, from the beginning. Had the league not been so heavy-handed in policing the protests, this issue likely would have abated sooner. Had the league ignored Trump instead of cowering to his bullying, appeasing Trump wouldn’t have become a priority. Had one league owner had the guts to sign Kaepernick, this collusion case would have been a nonstarter.
It doesn’t matter how much he made from the settlement announced on Friday; he bested the league.
JEMELE HILLFEB 17, 2019
LOREN ELLIOTT / REUTERS
Technically, Colin Kaepernick withdrew his collusion case. Technically, the NFL did not admit that it conspired to blackball Kaepernick from the league after he began taking a knee during the national anthem to protest racial injustice. But nontechnically speaking, the NFL lost. Massively.
For one, the depositions showed just how much league owners were petrified of President Donald Trump, who had loudly criticized the player protests. According to The Wall Street Journal, Jerry Jones, who owns the Dallas Cowboys, testified in a deposition that the president had told him in a phone conversation, “This is a very winning, strong issue for me,” and “Tell everybody you can’t win this one. This one lifts me.”
Trump felt that public sentiment was on his side when it came to the player protests, and was warning that he would not back off. That conversation with Jones, and separate ones with the Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross and the New England Patriots owner Bob Kraft, suggested that the league was allowing their fear of Trump to influence how it dealt with Kaepernick and the other protesters.
Had Kaepernick’s case gone further, there was no question that more sensitive and damaging information would have come out. Who knows what was said about Kaepernick or other players in texts and emails. Even if Kaepernick had lost the case, the NFL would have been left with a significant mess.
Some are already criticizing Kaepernick for settling, not realizing how rare it is to see the NFL backed into a corner, especially by a player. Tom Brady, arguably the greatest quarterback ever, couldn’t beat the NFL in court. Even he eventually had to accept his four-game suspension for Deflategate in 2016.
That Kaepernick was the one to make the NFL eat crow is a special kind of karma. This is just punishment because the league incompetently handled the player protests, starting with Kaepernick’s, from the beginning. Had the league not been so heavy-handed in policing the protests, this issue likely would have abated sooner. Had the league ignored Trump instead of cowering to his bullying, appeasing Trump wouldn’t have become a priority. Had one league owner had the guts to sign Kaepernick, this collusion case would have been a nonstarter.
How the fuck was someone suing a former employer for lost wages supposed to prevent racist cops from killing Black folks?
