TL; DR. Kaepernick had at least one chance, with the Denver Broncos, but he chose to not play football.
Article: John Elway blames Colin Kaepernick for no job
You didn’t read that whole article, did you?
OK, caught up with the thread.
The NFL did not blackball him. At least not fully. Kaep had his chance with the Broncos and chose to stay sitting out while also allowing people to continue thinking (without him saying otherwise) that he was still being blackballed. Like my previous post.
Collusion? Not fully. See above.
Kaep was no longer an NFL-caliber QB. At least not a starter. I loved the way he played and he brought my Niners to the brink of their sixth championship. But his skills were fading, his accuracy on crossing patterns and slants was atrocious (thus exposing his receivers’ ribs to injury), and he was fading and becoming irrelevant — and then he chose to put himself back in the public eye with his kneeling stunt. Boo Kaep.
What Kaep wants to accomplish is worthy. There are a lot of racial injustices needing correction. But the way he went about it he allowed more attention to be called on himself, instead of managing it better to call attention onto the injustices and what can be done about them.
Boo Kaep. I loved you early in your career and how you took the league by storm, but then your head got all swelled up and you mismanaged a worthy social movement.
Still didn’t read the article you posted?
Let’s make it simple.
Pre-2016 season: Broncos wanted to trade for Kaepernick, WHILE HE WAS STILL PLAYING WITH THE 49ERS.
2016 season: Kaepernick begins his protest
Also 2016 season: Elway says politics do not belong in football
Post-2016 season: Kaepernick opts out of his contract before the 49ers can cut him (John Lynch confirms)
Post-opt-out: No contract offer by the Broncos
Elway admitted, in the most ridiculously stupid way possible, that he blackballed Kaep. If he so much as discussed it with another GM or owner, he won Kaepernick’s lawsuit for him, like a fucking idiot.
Well, I heard the first part of that story on news radio some time back. When I saw this thread I remembered the story and did a quick search, and then referenced the first result in my post before reading the whole article.
So okay. 
Maybe he was being blackballed. Or maybe it was the teams realizing they didn’t want the distraction. I was a big fan of his and then his skills deteriorated, and his actions called attention to himself and not so much the issues.
Got it.
I still think everyone is being distracted by whether or not Kaepernick was blackballed or not.
Imagine if he was still on a team. The new NFL rules mean that, if he protests the anthem, his team would be fined. He’d still be punished for standing up for what he believes.
What I approve of is that the NFL is not able to silence this issue. If they fired him for the protest, they lose. If not, they still lose in trying to make the protesters hide. They may control the presentation of the national anthem, but they can’t drop Nike because of their commercial. They’re partnered with Nike for a long time.
You may say that people will just skip commercials. But they could have skipped the national anthem, too.
I’d wager the end game will be the NFL and its broadcasters no longer showing the national anthem again.
The new rules haven’t gone into effect, because they were obviously an end run around the CBA. Teams were split on how they would handle discipline - some would fine players, others claimed to not give a damn.
With Nike staking out an obvious position on the entire mess, they’ve eliminated any chance of this going away quietly. The easiest way to quell it, from the NFL’s standpoint, is to find a way to hide the controversy and take it off the air. They’re pretty obviously in a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” position.
Every time this issue comes up I’m just flabbergasted that we’re talking about a guy who refused to stand for the national anthem, rather than the half-dozen new draft picks accused of assault or sexual assault, or the guy who ran a fucking dogfighting ring who was mentioned upthread.
…Perhaps some perspective is in order.
Colin Kaepernik is holding what should by all accounts be the least disruptive, least problematic, least objectionable protest possible, the kind that you can completely ignore by simply not paying attention to it. He’s not blocking roads, he’s not marching on Washington, he’s not even taking up a seat on the fucking bus! He’s simply refusing to stand for the anthem. That’s it. That’s his protest.
Meanwhile, numerous other NFL players have been accused of sexual assault, domestic abuse, and more, and still play for the NFL. This article has a pretty decent overview. Here’s an excerpt:
Let’s look at some stats: in the 2017 NFL draft alone, three men who were tapped to join the league had been accused of violence against women — Gareon Conley (sexual assault), Joe Mixon (physical assault), and Caleb Brantley (physical assault). While, later, Conley was not charged and the case against Brantley was dismissed, the NFL still considered both players while the investigations were ongoing; Mixon was charged, and all three men currently play for the league. Colin Kaepernick does not.
Again, in 2017, a video surfaced of the Dallas Cowboys running back Ezekiel Elliott allegedly pulling down a woman’s top and exposing one of her breasts at a St. Patrick’s Day parade. The NFL didn’t immediately comment, even though this video came out after Elliott had already been accused of domestic abuse by an ex-girlfriend in the summer of 2016. These domestic violence allegations resulted in a six-game suspension ruling, which Elliott appealed. The suspension was placed on hold three times before he finally served it. Elliott still plays for the NFL.
[…]
While Boykin and Smith may have been penalized, these punishments feel like desperate attempts to rectify the minor slaps on the wrist that other players have received for previous alleged and confirmed violent incidents (for example, Ben Roethlisberger, quarterback for the Pittsburgh Steelers, has been accused of sexual assault twice yet his 14-year NFL career continues). When former Baltimore Ravens player Ray Rice knocked out his now-wife into unconsciousness in an elevator in 2014, Ray was suspended indefinitely — but not until TMZ released surveillance video footage of the horrific incident. When the domestic violence accusations against him first popped up, the NFL responded with just a two-game suspension — all resulting in a huge fallout. Since then, the NFL is still in need of some good PR, and I have to wonder if that influenced the league’s decision to suddenly take action against two players.
But no, the disruptive player, the problematic player, the blackballed player, is the one whose protest nobody would even notice if they weren’t actively looking to be outraged.
I dunno, it’s kinda fucking disgusting, isn’t it?
I am surprised you don’t understand that there is a very big difference between behavior on the job and off the job. Employers seldom sanction people for what they do off the job while they do for what they do on the job–and I think you would find most Dopers would agree this is the correct approach.
Didn’t a woman just recently got fired for flipping the bird at Trump’s motorcade on her own time?
And that’s by far not the only incident,
I suspect you would find very, very few Dopers who think Ray Rice should still be playing football.
Perhaps the best outcome of Nike employing Kaepernick for their ads, is to draw attention back to the shitty pay they give their employees, maybe the corporate giant could sacrifice just a little of their increased profits to help a lot of people.
I don’t know about Dopers, but the NFL disagrees with you. See here, for instance. Morals clauses are standard for all four major professional sports.
Clearly during a game there is a separate set of rules - but kneeling does not happen during a game, does it?
It is legal and proper for someone, e.g. an athlete, to use their celebrity status to project their values; but they should beware of consequences. It is legal and proper for someone, e.g. a team owner, to use their business power to project their values; they should beware of consequences. OP’s questions seem trivial; the thread could have been closed at once.
Whether a given Doper, as a third party, approves of the values expressed, or the mode of expression is subjective. I personally? I support Black Lives Matter, but oppose Nazis. I also oppose rapists.
Why are you changing the subject? You oppose the anthem-kneeler; I’ll guess you oppose the Nazi saluter as well. But how do you compare denying them employment with employing Tyson the rapist?
Telling fellow team owners that Kaepernick caused your franchise a lot of negative feedback from fans is not a conspiracy. It’s called “lunch”. Kaepernick is already on record as having turned down an offer.
Football is part of the entertainment business. Players are paid to fill seats. If as a player you insult the customer base then your value to the team goes down. It’s not rocket science.
He could have been a mediocre pro football player if only he had worked toward that goal. He had that opportunity.
Now he is just a shoe salesman with same probability of playing pro football again as Al Bundy or any other shoe salesman. No recent experience, little work history, none of it current, no recommendations other than being a problem employee. Business’ are lining up around the block to hire people like that.
Did you ignore the entire rest of that post? Because Elway never offered free-agent Kaepernick a contract, and has said exactly that.
I’m going to take exception to that characterization; I say he knelt in protest, rather than refused to stand, and that is an important distinction.
One of the best know figures in the sport, with a reputation for community service and charity, as well as strength of purpose and character, and all with less risk of TBE.