Colin Kaepernick needs a job. The Los Angeles Rams really could use a backup veteran quarterback.
It’s a great match, right?
Not when the controversial Kaepernick is getting the silent treatment from the NFL.
The Chicago Tribune’s Kevin Blackistone has joined filmmaker Spike Lee in speaking on Kaepernick’s behalf against the league. Blackistone wrote that the NFL has blackballed the former 49ers star, despite the quarterback putting up his best passer rating since 2013,
Kaepernick started 11 games last season, threw for 2,241 yards with 16 touchdowns and four interceptions. He rushed 69 times for 468 yards and two more scores.
And Blackistone noted:
Kaepernick managed the 17th-best quarterback rating last season among starters while coming back from injury. His touchdown percentage was 13th best, better than Washington’s Kirk Cousins, who wound up in the Pro Bowl and with a new franchise-tag contract worth $24 million next season. His interception percentage was sixth, just behind Aaron Rodgers and just ahead of MVP Matt Ryan.
Kaepernick’s sins—at least, not the ones on the football field—aren’t keeping him out of work.
He is an outspoken player who had the audacity to protest against police treatment of black men last summer after two high-profile cases came to light by kneeling for the national anthem. His critics railed on him, calling him unpatriotic and worse.
Imagine that—a player using a peaceful means to protest, thereby executing his right of freedom of expression as an American—being labeled “Un-American.”
Kaepernick’s plight isn’t similar to that of exiled Ray Rice, one of a multiple NFL players involved in a domestic violence incident. Unlike the vast majority of other players, Rice became an advocate for victims of domestic violence and a spokesman in the fight against domestic violence.
But Rice’s bigger crime was that his incident was caught on video, which has kept him out of the league.
Kaepernick had his own brush with the law in the 2014 offseason with a naked woman in a hotel room who wound up in a hospital. But no charges ever came of it.
And that’s certainly not why Kaepernick is currently out of a job.
The Rams, meanwhile, seemingly have given the keys of the franchise to second-year quarterback Jared Goff, despite his 0-7 record last season and his 63.6 passer rating. Adding Kaepernick not only would provide needed competition to force Goff to continue to raise his game, but also give Los Angeles insurance if Goff falters or gets hurt.
Then again, he did make that peaceful protest of an issue in which others took matters into their own hands by shooting police.
If L.A.—or any other team wants to call out Kaepernick for his play, that’s one thing. But is Sean Mannion really a better backup than Colin Kaepernick? For that matter, is Jared Goff a better starter right now than Colin Kaepernick?
What are the Rams to do?
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