I’m not sure that’s true. He’s a read option QB in a league that doesn’t use read option. As a backup, that’s an awful match. As a starter, you have to be good enough to build the offense around it. There are only 2 or 3 teams in the NFL that it makes sense for and they currently aren’t looking for a backup QB. If he’s being punished for his politics then why are Matt Cassel, Jay Cutler, Chase Daniels, Ryan Fitzpatrick, and RGIII all without teams?
Yeah, I’m not saying DA is one of these people, but note to everyone who complained about other protesters who they perceived as rude or violent: this is the sort of protest that you are looking for. You should be commending this sort of action as an exercise of free speech especially compared to blocking traffic or not policing the rioters in their own crowds (if the latter charge is appropriate which I am not sure of.)
I have to admit I don’t follow football as closely as I used to so I didn’t know that the read option was out. I was judging Kaerpernick primarily by his stats(and Tebow as well). So it looks like his situation is actually a lot like Tebow’s. He’s a QB you can win with but who wants to build a new offense that only one guy can run?
With Chase Daniel I always thought it was because teams judged him for being short. No matter how often players who don’t fit the mold of their position, physically speaking, succeed, teams still go ga-ga over the 6-4 guys with the rifle arms who can’t run an offense.
Here’s how I feel about politics in the workplace. No matter how offensive something said is, always assume ignorance and warn the person. If the person persists in unacceptable behavior, then you can take disciplinary action. Even with something like a Nazi salute. some young people have barely any knowledge about that sort of thing. Even in Germany, Uwe Boll before his movie Auschwitz interviews high school and college kids about the Nazis and the holocaust and they knew very little about it.
So basically, racist or extremely offensive political statements should be handled using progressive discipline. Unless you are sure that there is malice behind the statement, where the person is obviously trying to intimidate their co-workers.
But in practice, not knowing that you can’t say “you people” can get you in big trouble these days. That’s a bit much.
Given that NCAA is an incubator for NFL, and given that NFL prefers a particular offense and defense style, and given that many (most? all?) high skill position players in NCAA are looking to the NFL, why does a player or a team adopt an approach that NFL sees as unorthodox?
I get that unlike minor league baseball, the NCAA teams’ revenue stream in not closely coupled to the NFL. But that logic does not apply to the players.
If I’m the kind of high school superstar that is being recruited by NCAA and I or my advisors have any clue at all about how the NCAA to NFL transition goes, it’s strongly in my interest to choose an NCAA team that follows the NFL playbook so to speak. And to reject recruitment to a team that does otherwise unless that’s my only shot at playing high level NCAA ball.
Over time I’d expect this *collective *preference by the players to have some feedback into the behavior of the NCAA teams. Any one player won’t mean beans. But if everybody learns (has learned?) that playing Tebow- or Kaepernick-style college football is a route to NFL failure, the pressures will grow.
OK, but if you’re confident that the person understands the meaning of their words or gesture, it seems that you would approve of consequences for that. That contradicts what seemed to be a more absolutist free speech position that you staked out earlier (in the post I quoted).
No. No No No No No. As spectacularly craptastic as he has been lately, I still have nightmares of him running wild on the Packers. We’ll even sign Cutler - he’s already the fourth best quarterback Green Bay has ever had.
Cutler is still a better quarterback than Kaepernick, and likewise unemployed. Other free agents that protested have been signed. As high profile as his sitting/kneeling was, it’s no where near the main reason he’s not on a team yet.
Seriously. Judged only on their ability to play football, I’d take Cutler over Kaepernick. Fitzpatrick, RGIII and Kap are about a wash. If Kaepernick was a great quarterback, he could have spit on the flag before every game and he’d have still been signed on day one of free agency.
It used to be that the very best athletes were funneled into the running back position. When you ran the ball the majority of the time you wanted your best kid carrying the ball. As the game evolved to be more passing, coaches at the lower levels determined that the way to get the best athlete more touches was to make him the quarterback. This works great at the lower levels because the risk of injury is lower and the quality and skill of the opposing defense can be relatively poor. The problem with this is that it doesn’t leave room for the traditional quarterback to grow his skills. The big slow guy with a great arm is now a lineman or something. This is bad news from the NFLs perspective.
From the perspective of the individual teams, such a small percentage of the kids go from one level to the next that sacrificing winning, fun, great experiences, ect. so that they can groom a future NFL player is crazy.
And here I thought I was being generous by calling him marginal.
I have boycotted restaurants because of a racist employee. Why not boycott a football team because of a douchebag employee? He has a platform and he used it to be a douchebag. I am advocating for removing him from that platform because he simply isn’t good enough for me to put up with his douchebaggery .
Fred Phelps also had peaceful protests at the funerals of dead soldiers against homosexuality. I don’t have to stand up and clap every time someone protests without burning down koreatown. We can judge each protest on its own merits.
One reason for the backlash against Kaepernick might have been that he was demanding something that was, essentially, non-deliverable.
If he had said, “I’m kneeling until the city of San Francisco passes Ordinance 101-A to protect minorities,” that would have been one thing - concrete, practical and measurable. But by demanding an end to what he perceived as “injustice in society” - a broad, nebulous and abstract concept - he might as well have protested, “I will kneel until there is world peace.”
