Kaepernick’s Unemployment
Alright so let’s chat about Kaepernick for a bit. I’ve mostly avoided that whole thing outside one guest comic early in the year. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to make a comic, I just never really came up with anything decent, and the situation felt like it was ever swinging that I kept sort of pushing it off to see how it played out. I was ultimately on Kaep’s side. He was making a peaceful protest, his given right as an American, and most of the people who were angry seemed like they didn’t quite understand why he was protesting or misconstrued it into something it wasn’t (It was never about the damn troops). I didn’t agree with everything. When he wore the “pig cops” socks or whatever it was, that was the wrong move and I don’t think it helped him. But it was pretty hard for me to side with anyone who thought he was a terrorist or bad when all he was doing was a kneel down, and doing a lot to help causes. Kaep over the past year has been a far better Christian than most of the Christians who hate him.
So now with him gone from the 49ers, he hasn’t found a job yet, and the two sides argue ever on. Now there seem to be slightly different sides. One side is the “SJW” side, that feel he’s basically out of a job pretty much soley due to his protests, and there is the “ignorant or racist” side, which is more about how Kaep sucks as a player and his protesting is mostly irrelevant. Since it’s the internet and middle ground does not exist, few are accepting that the truth is Kaepernick doesn’t have a job because of both. Everyone is kinda right here.
Kaepernick is absolutely being blackballed by racist idiots. There are a lot of people being willfully ignorant because they don’t want to admit that politics are part of sports. These are the “stick to sports” people, who view the “issues” as annoying real world problems that they shouldn’t have to deal with in their escapist entertainment. I get it, the world sucks, and football is good. Football is not this “pure” bubble they want it to be. You can’t ignore the related problems and everything is politics. Stick to Sports people are deluding themselves.
But it’s not like Kaepernick is some great player held back by the man. He’s not very good. He hasn’t grown as a player. His best years were on stacked teams, and he has not fixed his flaws. He still can’t throw a touch medium range pass. He still can’t read a defense. He still panics under pressure and doesn’t seem to have a decision making process. He can throw to an open man, but he can’t throw open a man, which is a hallmark of a great QB. Kaepernick is also asking for pretty decent money, and that has to turn some teams off.
It’s both of these factors together that are keeping Kaep unemployed. Take away his activisim and he probably has a job. Make him a good QB and he probably has a job. Not 100% guarantee has a job in either scenario, but probably has a job or much better prospects than he’s currently looking at.
Kaep is suffering from a long trend of something I call the Tebow effect. Basically, in a very general sense, players in the NFL (and sports, and in life honestly), need to be worth their baggage. If a player is not worth the accompanying baggage, he won’t get signed. This ratio is different for every team, etc, I’m talking very generally here. Baggage is any drama, distraction, or element that does not have to do with the player’s ability. I use Tebow as an example because Tebow had one of the biggest discrepancies in his “baggage / skill” ratio I’ve ever seen. Tebow was a very meh player at best. Tebow’s hype is probably the biggest hype I’ve ever witnessed, especially for a player of his low caliber. He wasn’t worth the frenzy that came with him. When Tebow fans talk about how Tebow got screwed over, I honestly agree to some extent. But Tebow fans don’t seem to get the reason Tebow got screwed over was because they wouldn’t shut up about him. Tebow without the hype probably has a longer career. Maybe he even eventually becomes the player his fans already saw him as. But what team wants to pick up a backup level QB who immediately destroys any cohesion because of how much media frenzy comes with it? If I was Rex Ryan that season, I probably would have resented Tim Tebow too, why is this crappy backup the most talked about player on my team?
You could honestly call the problem “the TO effect”. or the “Ray Rice” effect. It doesn’t matter. If you have a lot of baggage, you have to be a better player to be worth it, because teams hate distraction. Coaches want uniformity, they want a cohesive unit, and anything that hurts that is a flaw. A little baggage isn’t even a bad thing, some press is better than no press, especially for small market teams. But once you hit a certain level of discrepancy, you are un-signable. Greg Hardy was a huge dickweed, but he was still viewed as very good. The Cowboys took a chance, and it turned out he was actually a bigger scumbag and a worse player, and he will never play again. Josh Brown was a dick, but because he was a good kicker, and kickers don’t get press as it is, he didn’t actually have all that much baggage until midseason when the ongoing story had more facts come out and the mounting pressure made him a liability. Tom Brady has a metric fuckton of baggage, (he can’t fart without a story about it and tons of bostonites saying it’s the GOAT fart, supreme smell and all) but Tom Brady is also very good at football. Beckham has high baggage, but is also very good at football, and anyone who thought the Giants should trade or bench him were really stupid. That was never going to happen unless Beckham suddenly turned into a pumpkin (like against Green Bay, but for like half a season first).
Kaep simply isn’t good enough to be worth the rest of the baggage that comes with him. At least right now. He could absolutely start on several teams. He’s an automatic upgrade on the Rams, Browns, Bears, Jets, Broncos, Texans, and ironically the 49ers right now, even though the Rams wouldn’t take him because they invested in Goff. He’s debate-ably an upgrade for the Jags and possibly Dolphins and the Bills if the Bills ditched Tyrod. He’s an easy upgrade at backup for most of the league. There is enough talent left to be worth an investment.
Ultimately, I think Kaep will have a team in 2017, but it won’t be till after the draft, when QB needy teams have now had a chance to address the problem in the draft and now have a better idea how their roster might look. I think Cutler stays unemployed for the same period of time. He also has baggage and also sucks.
One thing we can all agree on: his fro is fucking amazing.
I swear Dave, I feel like every time you draw Kaepernick it seems you draw his Afro bigger and bigger. Is this the next Peyton Manning forehead schtick you’re trying out?
If so, I like it!
To be fair, Kaep’s RL afro is also getting bigger and bigger.
I honestly think it is a mix of both sides, which sorta makes it even more mercenary and cruel. If he was a better and well proven player, the owners and ‘patriotic peeps’ would put up with the ‘horrible protesting’ because they would be making money/winning. So really, if you are not an elite player, they have a ‘sit down and shut up’ mentality.
Owners hate ‘unnecessary’ (at least what they view as unnecessary) media attention. If you’re going to bring that with you, you better be a damn good player.
I have to think that it’s pretty heavily politics. Don’t get me wrong, Kaep has some obvious deficiencies as a passer. He’s not Brady or Rodgers, not by a long shot. He has all of the flaws that you mentioned. He’s not elite. But man, the idea that there are 32 starting QBs who are better than him is crazy.
The Niners have Brian Hoyer. The Browns have Brock Osweiler. The Jets have Josh McCown. The Texans don’t even have Osweiler or Hoyer anymore, they have Tom Savage. You’re really going to tell me that Kaep couldn’t be an upgrade over any of these guys in a league so starved for QB play that Ryan Fitzpatrick and Matt Cassel could find work year after year after year. And if not as a starter, not even as a backup?
He is a distraction. He did piss off all the wrong people, and teams don’t want to deal with the headache. But we’ve welcomed back domestic abusers and stoners and drunk drivers with open arms. Apparently silently protesting (in all the ways that’s supposed to check off the boxes for “legitimate” protest) is worse than that.
Brock Osweiler isn’t the Browns’ starting QB. If the Browns wanted to win seven games this year they’d probably have signed him, because he’d get them to seven wins. The problem is that he probably wouldn’t ever get them to eight, so they’re better off developing Kessler or whichever rookie they bring in and winning four or five this year.
How would he get the Browns seven wins if he couldn’t even get the 49ners 3?
He couldn’t get the 49ers two. Gabbart got the other
I feel like Cutler is the perfect counterpoint to the idea that it is mostly politics and really emphasizes Dave’s point.
Are there teams that would be better off with Kaep then they are now? Absolutely. The same is true for Jay Cutler. Would you say Kaep is without a doubt a better QB then Cutler? Cause I wouldn’t. And Cutler doesn’t have the political baggage. Yet he still can’t get signed just like Kaep. So what is the reason there?
The fact is they have similar reasons. They have significant issues on the field and some issues off the field which makes them not worth signing at this point (and for the $$ they want).
Dave is arguing that it is not necessarily about politics, but baggage in general. And Cutler has plenty of baggage.
“Me first” guy.
“My locker room can´t stand me” guy.
“I demand a trade because my feelings got hurt” guy.
I have never followed him closely enough to know how much of this is true.
But I can tell you that my current perception of him, as shaped by the media (including Dave), is that he is a douchebag, and I can´t stand that guy.
I am guessing that he is not as insufferable as portrayed, and that he will find a job too. But teams won´t be willing to own up that baggage before they know if they can find an alternative in the draft.
Yeah, you got me. Politics is Kaep’s baggage, Cutler has personality baggage. I don’t think it’s as big as Kaep’s but I also think Cutler’s age and also general suckitude keeps him homeless. Kaep still feels like he has potential, Cutler feels like he’s hit his ceiling, which I think plays into it.
Sure, keep playing that broken record that all his teammates have already come out publicly and stated was false.
Cutler has personal baggage because he doesn’t care what the fans, nor media think of him. He has no interests in playing the “PR” game with anyone outside the game and people can’t stand that. It also means that other teams are hesitant to welcome him for the same reason of the PR backlash….again, the Kaep/Cutler issues laid out in this comic.
Look. I don’t care enough to find out what is true and what’s not about Cutler.
But just out of curiosity?
Did he bitched his way out of Denver because McDaniels was interested in Cassel, or is that another lie?
Which feeds in to your play and personality needing to back up your perceived baggage.
Marshawn Lynch not only did not care about media hype or politics, he was outright avoidant of it though not explicitly hostile. The media tried to make hay out of it, but Seattle fans, and I’d argue football fans in general, as well as his teammates just loved him more for it. That’s because he’s a generally upstanding guy and a beast of a running back.
If Cutler had stronger backing of his teammates or some outward display of personality, his IDGAF tactic with the media would probably resonate better. The problem is he doesn’t seem to care about anything but himself.
Absolutely Summoner! Had he been a better QB or had he held a special place in the Chicago fan’s heart, he would have been loved for not caring. Though I do have to say Lynch got away with it more because he handled it expertly and Cutler lacked the public skillset Lynch had. Lynch hated the media for the same reasons we do: they try to make something out of nothing for the sake of sensationalism.
While I think both lousy play and his protests (even if I am one of those heavily against his protests because I see them an am offense to the flag that our armed forces (cops included) fight anf have fought to protect) have kept Kaep a free agent, you can’t tell me that Kaep is better than or even equal to DON’T CARE butt is crazy.
Is he better than the likes of Davis Webb (Cal) Brad Kayak (The U), Jared Goff, Trevor Siemian, and Tom Savage? Yes.
Butt Cutter, no.
I think the GMs view it as: if ((player.abilities – mediaCircus) < player.askingPrice) { player.sign(); }
While I'm certain some owners are most definitely racist, I wonder if not standing for the flag was a bigger deal to them than the issue of race. That might be a generational thing.
Likewise Caeps view on the subject does appear to be pretty extreme as well (at least base on his Twitter). Like to the point where some like myself who supports with his cause wonders if it hurts the cause more than helps. I dunno.
Are you the one that wrote the software code for the Browns’ draft-strategy program?
That should be a “>”, not a “<".
I honestly can’t think of a point where I have disagreed with you more, or where your perspective of one side is as grossly mistaken.
The folks who say Kaep doesn’t have a job aren’t saying it because politics don’t matter. They’re saying it because Kaeps politics are so laughably ignorant and childish that they aren’t a threat to any of the brass, so they don’t care. He’s not going to hurt box office revenue, so they don’t care. He’s not going to hurt the NFL brand in any meaningful way, so they don’t care. The NFL’s history and nature is replete with literally hundreds of individuals of outspoken political views, whether they are as talented and controversial as Jim Brown, or understated 3rd-stringers. Talent will out, an if you’ll take a pay check in line with your ability, you will always have a spot on an NFL roster.
Kaepernick’s problem isn’t even in the slightest about him sitting/kneeling during the National Anthem: it’s that he believes he’s worth more than his play merits. One might speculate that his insipid view of race might make him think he’s excluded because of racial reasons, but that really requires you to ignore the NFL’s frankly extraordinary legacy of inclusion.
Yes, there were individual owners who were racist or biggotted beyond acceptability, even by the standards of a much more openly racist time. But we’re talking the NFL as a whole, and while the Redskins were whiteskins only, the much of the rest of the NFL was eagerly ignoring racial lines, and welcoming talent in spite skin color. Steve Largent, and later Reggie White, pushed the NFL to be more open to religious players– it’s perhaps hard to believe, but there was a perspective from the 70s, 80s, and 90s that religious players weren’t good for sports, and religion dampened and hurt a competitive edge. Pick a political issue: there have been loud, outspoken supporters of– and opponents of– that issue since the 1920s, and they have ALWAYS found a team, and they aren’t just super stars. They’re *anyone*.
The NFL’s nature is one of hyper competition, and every single player, coach, manager, and *especially* owner has dealt with, and worked with, people whose political beliefs, whose behavior, and whose personality they absolutely *LOATH*. They have worked with those people, and they haven’t given the slightest fig about what that person does or doesn’t believe *as long as they are doing their job well*. As soon as that job starts to suffer, then yeah– the politics will come into play, and that person will be eaten alive, savagely and brutally. Their play on the field and the perceived idiocy of their belief system will be tied together as each causal of the other.
But if Kaepernick were worth what he wants, he could advocate for pedaresty, and he’d have a place in the NFL. He’s not, and that’s really the end of the issue. Billionaire owners don’t become billionaires by being incapable of putting politics before success, and I’ll guarantee that none of Kaepernicks childish, simplistic, and unrealistic viewpoints are in any way a threat to their power, success, or well-being.
The NFL has many, many, many faults, on moral and on ethical lines, but of all its many faults, putting politics before performance hasn’t been one since at least the 1920s. In fact, its willingness to ignore political controversy in order to court performance is a demonstration of this.
The NFL will always be intrinsically linked to politics. Look at the majority of stadium deals with public funding over the years. While someone may want to think that performance will always be the greatest barometer for a player, it’s just not true. In a league where recently 67 percent of NFL-linked donations went to republican leaning charities and political causes, can you really say politics isn’t playing a large part in this?
I agree with Dave and think it is a mix of conditions, especially his asking price. I can’t find any truth to saying political factors are being ignored.
I’m confused by this parapgraph and I can’t find out where our disagreement comes from:
Isn’t saying that kaep’s politics are ignorant and childish that they aren’t a threat to the brass essentially the same thing as saying “politics don’t matter?” You could rephrase that as “Kaep’s politics are so ignorant that they don’t matter to the brass”. Maybe you misinterpreted what I meant by “politics don’t matter”, this is basically what I meant. It was more that he had political views that caused baggage more than the actual views themselves. You seem to be basically agreeing with everything I was saying through your post.
Basically people who say the baggage doesn’t matter are only half right though, and they would have been more right two decades ago.
Anyone who thinks Kaep’s politics or that the owners aren’t worried about Kaep’s “Ignorant” politics affecting the bottom line are too entrenched in history to notice how the world works now. The NFL is slowly learning that it can’t operate like it did in the 1920’s anymore. The internet giving everyone a voice has changed everything, and politics (baggage) absolutely affect bottom lines. A lot of people blamed Kaep for the ratings drop earlier this year and to be honest there really isn’t any evidence that he didn’t in some way play a part in it. The NFL is finally suffering actual consequences to their policy of putting play first and everything else after. Ray Rice wouldn’t have missed a game in the 80’s, but the NFL suffered the worst PR year they ever had thanks to him and the power of outrage on the internet. Kaep’s politics absolutely affect the bottom line, and the owners know it too. Politics used to not matter basically at all, they do now. Tebow’s hype probably would have helped him in the 80’s or 90’s. In the age of internet culture wars, it was too much. Anyone who thinks Kaep’s politics don’t matter is living in an insulated bubble. How much his politics affects any given team is on a case by case basis but when combined with the fact that he kinda sucks, that’s not a risk teams want quite yet.
I mean you basically agreed with me through that whole post. Kaep doesn’t have a job because his level of play isn’t worth the nonsense that currently comes with it.
My point is that, while there are cases where baggage can come into play, the only baggage Kaep has that the NFL cares about are his garbage play, and his overestimation of his value as a player. The political thing isn’t a locker room distraction. His insane girlfriend isn’t an issue. The stuff that matters to the fans and the media makes no difference in the locker room itself, because for us, they are all personalities, but in the locker room, everyone’s a teammate, a person. It ain’t your crazy uncle coming home for Thankgiving to gripe about the *pick a topic*. It’s your brother, your sister, your kid. His antics matter to us– peripherally. They don’t matter at *ALL* in a locker room. That’s my point: it’s not partially politics, partiallyplay. Kaep doesn’t have a job, 100%, because his perception of his value as a player doesn’t match reality. His political baggage isn’t even the slightest, remotest consideration among GMs.
You almost have too much faith in football executives to be that objective and unaffected by outside drama. You are literally the dude in this comic.
There are plenty of reports of executives saying exactly what you claim they don’t care about. Here’s one. http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2696245-mike-freemans-10-point-stance-kaepernick-protest-still-has-nfl-teams-worried
Mike Freeman of B/R has been doing excellent reporting on this whole thing actually: http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2698098-colin-kaepernick-sentenced-to-nfl-limbo-for-the-crime-of-speaking-his-mind
Freeman might have a bias, but if what he said is even half true of GM’s hating him, everything you said is immediately defunct.
The fact that executives would say things that strong about Kaepernick proves that they do care about the issue, at minimum in terms of how it affects perception of the team in the public eye (which affects the bottom line). Maybe they don’t personally care about his activism, but they care about how we the fans perceive it, because it might mean lost profits. For a group of people who you believe do not care about his politics, there are remarkably few executives saying anything to defend the guy, even if some do personally support him…like they are afraid to speak out about it…because it fucking matters.
Kaep’s activism and politics matter to executives for a number of reasons. This isn’t a question of if, it’s a question of to what degree it matters, which probably varies from GM to GM. Some might genuinely only think about it in the ways you say. But to say Kaep doesn’t have a job purely because of football reasons is going against all common sense. Kaepernick’s protest caused one of the biggest uproars and political debates in football’s history, everyone has a strong opinion on it…but GMs are not concerned with that at all? Only about the football parts? Really?
It proves to me that A) they know how to attempt to drive down Kaep’s price, and B) Saying it’s a concern is good PR to the NFL’s primary base. It tells me they understand that with a lack-luster history but a large potential upside, underselling the guy publicly makes you look better if you take him and he succeeds.
I fervently believe that, if an NFL exec says something about a free agent, it’s dishonest, and designed to give them the best leverage possible. In that mildest of senses, you could say that his politics is hurting his hiring, not because of the politics itself, but because it provides leverage for NFL execs to play games with. I maintain that they don’t care– or that if they do on a personal level, they are competitive enough to put it aside. One or two may let it get to them, but you’re talking a league of 32 teams, not a monolithic whole. And as desperate as teams are for QBs, there’s no way, no way in hell, that execs are actually holding back out of fear of this issue.
Tbh it’s both he sucks and the political bullshit
So does this mean Trent Difler is the new Sexy Rexy?
Im pretty sure Kaep’s afro is just Sammy hiding so he can plan the world’s demise. (I now hope new england signs Kaep just so we can have Sammy meeting Billy 5 Aces)
Honestly, the idea that all 32 teams are colluding to keep Kaep off the league is pretty laughable. Maybe they all agree that he’d be bad for their team, but that seems doubtful. I find it way more likely that it’s a combination of only about a third of the NFL is even in the market for a quarterback, Kaep is at least the second best option in free agency after Cutler and there’s still the draft and we don’t know what teams think about the quarterback prospects. There are still dominoes that need to fall and I fully expect Kaep to find a job eventually. There’s still too much off-season to go to say anything about blackballing. Plus if push comes to shove John Harbaugh will pick him up to protect his little brother’s NFL legacy.
I could see Baltimore using him as a cheap, post-draft backup in the 3-6 mil per year range once teams like Houston, Zona, and Cleveland already have their qbs for 2017.
You don’t need to collude with all 32 teams. All you need are the 3-4 QB needy teams to individually say..”mmmm…no thanks” and everyone else flinches
The idea that crappy organisations like the Browns or Jags not signing Kaep would make good organisations like the Packers or Steelers rethink any decision is even more laughable.
Not all the clubs that did not sign Kaep were crappy. Denver and Houston both said, “No thanks. We’re cool.”
If you were truly on Kaep’s side, you know he would have a problem with that second panel and the lady going “mmmhmm.”
I like his protest and how it drives the “blackballing white man” crazy, even though it’s not a big deal at all. It’s the national anthem, not like he’s taking a knee on the first play of his team’s first drive, to show the other team that they aren’t scared. THAT would be something.
It’s not 2013 anymore, and his team has only won 2 games, 1 without Kaep. That’s not much better than Josh McCown, who hit his peak in 2013 but ever since then is allergic to winning. But guys like McCown and Hoyer are cool with sitting on the bench and coming in as backup. It doesn’t seem like Kaepernick is.
He knows the potential he has, and with a great defense, running game, and coaching, he can get back to his old ways. So I think Houston is a PERFECT fit for him, but the protesting is going to be a problem with J.J. Watt. If J.J. Watt has a problem with you, you don’t fit in.
I think we’re all glossing over the worst aspect of Kap:
He’d make a play with his legs, and then kiss his bicep in celebration. I mean, what the *fuck*, dude?
If Kaep haven’t been playing like Kraep, I’m sure his politics would have been stomached at least but losing his starting job isn’t going to help as well as his anti-police stance.
Also I’m posting this for an obvious pun.
I think his performance is why he isn’t a starter and his politics is why he’s unemployed. While I’m a bit more sympathetic with Kaep than I was with Tebow, it’s sorta the same issue; Kaep could probably be one of those crappy backups that gets shuffled around onto every team in the league and make his money that way, but he draws too much media attention for it to be worth it.
Anyone claiming politics doesn’t play into it needs to explain why Geno Smith has a job but Kaep doesn’t.
Also Josh McCown, Mike Glennon, Tyrod Taylor, maybe Brian Hoyer.
Taylor is actually good and Hoyer has proven a quality backup over the last couple of years. But still, Geno Smith…
Geno is getting like a million to be a clear backup. Unless you think Kaep would have been willing to sign that same contract I don’t think it’s fair to compare them.
I was sympathetic to Kaepernick until I learned that for all of his protesting, he didn’t even fucking vote. Fuck him.
And Mike Evans for the exact same shit (and Evans did basically say fuck you to the miltary by only kneeling on veterans day).
Why is voting a paramount issue when there were no options in the general election that would’ve been consistent with his beliefs?
1. Voting is a right, a responsibility, and a civic duty. Voting is what a democracy is built on.
2. You can always vote fuck you to the bipartisan establishment by voting for a third party. Any third party, doesn’t matter which.
3. The president is not the only item on the ballot. There were 25 propositions that directly impacted the San Francisco county to be voted on last year, without counting the statewide and national stuff.
By not voting, the message he gave was that he doesn’t really give a fuck about issues. He didn’t care enough to take a few minutes of his life to do his civic duty.
What sense is there in voting if, increasingly, the government has shown itself to be completely unresponsive to the demands of the general public at the federal level? There were literally zero good options in this election and if someone chooses to abstain from participating in the process they should in no way be condemned for it.
Give me a break!
Government appears to be increasingly deaf to the public’s issues BECAUSE people do not vote. The largest block of people that vote with a consistent basis tend to be the one’s every politician tries to court and is always creates policy to defend: old people. And that’s because they vote
I’m confused, I thought he didn’t vote for president, not that he didn’t vote… at all. If he didn’t vote for president, I think that’s fine. Personally, I would have written my name; I agree with my stance on everything. However, if he didn’t even get a ballot in, then he shouldn’t complain.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/nov/16/colin-kaepernick-has-never-registered-to-vote-in-a/
Colin Kaepernick has never registered to vote in any election. He turned 18 in 2005 but passed up opportunities to vote for Barack Obama, not to mention local and statewide issues.
…which is his right. We do not have mandatory voting in the US, and it’s also legitimate for someone to have a political awakening and become politically active in their 20s or 30s or whatever. He has his opinion (that the entire system is corrupt and that voting at all would be hypocritically supporting that corrupt system) and I disagree with it, but it’s his right to have it and to express it.
I don’t know in what state Kaep is registered to vote but chances are that it wasn’t one in which Gloria La Riva was even on the ballot.
I will always think the racism argument in this is BS, though my argument of more technicalities than defending those hating him for his kneeling. Patriotism isn’t racism, but I find both on the same level of ignorance.
That aside, nice to know I’m not the only who thinks of Tim Tebow when seeing all this controversy on Colin.
Being a patriot is actually a good thing when it’s not being hijacked by rednecks going “DERRR ‘MURICA!” which ruins it for everyone and unfairly so. That or the certain heel team in New England.
Speaking of Tebow, it’d be funny if there’s a Chick Tract type comic made about him. Even now there are still nutcases who thinks Tebow is being blackballed because he’s Christian…haven’t they heard of Drew Brees?
A military brat here, and still in a very military community. The kneeling was essentially taken as a big FU to the military, regardless of his reasons, especially within the military community.
One veteran I talked to equated Kaep’s kneeling to: “bad mouthing your mother because you don’t like your teacher.”
That’s because the military has co-opted the Pledge of Alliegience and the Flag, inappropriately. The flag is just a national symbol, and the Pledge is a weird nationalist indoctrination tool we force children to do at an age where they can’t really understand it.
But Kaepernick was always explicitly clear about what his protest was for. “…and Liberty and Justice for All” is not, in his opinion, being provided by the country, and he is protesting that lack of access to liberty and justice.
People who insist that his protest meant something other than what he said it meant were just looking for reasons to be offended. We call that being thin-skinned, and the last thing that military people should be is super thin skinned.
Our military protects our freedom and one of our most critically important freedoms is the freedom to publicly protest injustice. Anyone in the military who doesn’t understand that is, I’m sorry, just a fucking idiot.
I wasn’t talking about the pledge of allegiance. I was talking about the National Anthem, which was first played at sporting events to commemorate the soldiers fighting in the first World War, and so on, thereafter.
If Kaepernick doesn’t understand that kneeling is essentially a big “FU” to the military, which is his right to do of course, he shouldn’t be surprised when other use their First Amendment right, to return the big “FU” right back to him.
And at the end of your rant, you’re calling me a “fucking idiot”? I’m just relaying the perspective from most of the military community. So I guess I’m a “fucking idiot” by simply trying to explain why some people are extremely pissed off about it. Dude, just relax a little, it’ll do you good. You might even live longer because of it.
yeah, kinda up to the military to be offended or not by that
The Black Tebow will definitely struggle to find a place on the league. Dude couldn’t beat the lazy Jets defense, I don’t know what happens at halftime but he starts playing worse after coming to the 3rd quarter.
Politics in sports sure can be a weird dynamic. Thousands of people started watching the NFL because a guy kneeled in prayer after a touchdown, and thousands of people stopped watching the NFL because several players kneeled for 60 seconds at the start of a 3-4 hour game. People pick and choose when they like politics infused into their sports experience. Not surprisingly, they only like it when it’s a political stance they approve of. “You can make political/religious statements in sports, they just have to be ones I agree with.”
When did we start flying military jets and honoring military service members and having military bands play and all the other military stuff constantly present at football games? What exactly is it about this particular sport that makes people conflate it with supporting the military?
The association is frankly bizarre and it’s no wonder military people get offended, if football is now somehow intrinsically representing patriotic support for our troops.
But it’s still really stupid for troops to be mad about someone exercising one of the fundamental rights that they exist to protect.
I think part of Kaep’s problem is that this is a bad market to be a quarterback in. There’s maybe six teams who entered this offseason looking for a new starter at QB: the Bears, the Niners, the Jets, the Broncos, the Texans, and the Browns. Everyone else has a young guy who looks like the future (Wentz, Mariota), a young project who they invested heavily in and hope can turn it around (Goff, Bortles), or a long term guy they’re committed to. (Everyone from elites like brady and Rodgers to good not great guys you can win with like eli and flacco)
So of those six teams, we can cross off the Niners immediately. He wanted out of San Fran, and they were okay with him leaving, it was a mutual split that neither side seems to want to reunite. Down to five options.
Now we get to the draft, and there’s three quarterbacks who teams seem to believe can be immediate starters in Watson, Trubisky, and Kizer, maybe four or five, depending on how teams feel about Mahomes and Webb. That slims down the options to one, maybe two. Bear in mind that until last week, one of those teams thought they’d land Romo, too.
So in all likelihood there’s maybe one team that’d have a starting spot for him, if even that, which means he’d probably be a backup if he gets an NFL gig this season, which is where Kaep hits a snag: he doesn’t fit the role of a backup. There are three logical molds for a backup quarterback:
1. A rookie or sophomore who’s learning the system to take over like Rodgers or Rivers that you don’t want to start immediately, either because they need a year to learn, or because you have a great QB already, and they’re just there to take over in two years.
2. A longtime veteran who’s not good enough to do anything worthwhile, but has a solid enough grip on the mental game to be a second coach for a young guy.
3. A shot-in-the-dark guy who went to a DII school or played in Canada that you think could be the next Brady or Warner to come out of nowhere because the stars aligned.
Kaep doesn’t fall into any of these molds. His track record since Harbaugh left is too inconsistent for a team to sign him as the young guy for the future, and his biggest problem has always been making NFL reads downfield, which makes it hard to qualify him for the veteran mentor role, and he’s no unknown shot that we’re hoping for miracles out of. He doesn’t really fit what you want out of a backup quarterback, and there’s no starting job available. It’s a bad market for what he brings to the field.
That’s all before getting to his politics, which I have no doubt is a big factor too. Teams don’t tolerate any media attention that isn’t a carefully scripted PR event, unless they’re Woody Johnson and want Tebow to sell tickets. Mix that with the generally conservative slant of a lot of coaches, and it’s a double whammy for Kaep, especially since he’d be looking at a backup job at best.