Colin Kaepernick all but ended his NFL career with grievance filing
By Peter Panacy
Former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick filed a grievance with the NFL for collusion, stating the league and its owners have denied him employment rights after his social activism. By doing so, Kap has effectively ended his NFL career.
Last January, I promised myself I wouldn’t write about Colin Kaepernick anymore. Not until something drastic happened, like some other team signing him or whatever.
But news of the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback filing a grievance against the NFL for violating the league’s collective bargaining agreement is big enough, even if it didn’t exactly gain a lot of media headway.
Why is it so important? Well, the move by Kaepernick and his legal team has all but brought an end to the former star’s career.
More on the action can be seen in the ESPN video below:
Ever since Kap opted out of his contract with the 49ers, who were going to cut him in 2017 anyway, 31 other teams elected to pass on his services. There are surely more than a handful of reasons for this, but it’s naive to assume Kap’s role in national anthem protests and social activism are not a huge part of the equation.
I don’t care whether or not you agree with his stance. At this point, you’ve made up your mind whether you support him or not. This article isn’t going to change that.
Rather, I wanted to point out the irony where Kaepernick’s career has taken him — from the utmost levels of stardom to being an outcast, a player exiled from the sport he loved and once thrived in.
Live Feed
App Trigger
Was It Worth the Risk for Colin Kaepernick?
Free-speech advocates (you should be one, I hope) could easily get in Kap’s corner, stating he had absolutely every right to make his stance… or knee, if you want to get literal.
Absolutely. the Constitution guarantees that.
But without getting overly political or historical, we’re also entitled to fully disagree or be upset with his actions. That’s perfectly OK too. And as employers, which the 32 team representatives of the NFL are, they have the right to be upset with Kaepernick’s actions as well.
Not sure the NFL has the best measuring sticks for character judgment, but whatever.
Kaepernick knew this before his protest went viral. Even afterwards, when further actions — like wearing pig socks or tee shirts, with Fidel Castro, in Miami — likely did more harm to his cause than good.
All this was a calculated gamble, one Kap knew could easily cost him his NFL career.
A full offseason and five weeks into 2017, that has been the case. Even after numerous teams were in desperate need of a quarterback.
The margins were slim, and this grievance wipes the chances of an NFL return to zero.
Colin Kaepernick Has Played His Last NFL Game
Kaepernick’s legal actions are basically the equivalent of walking into a former boss’ office and giving him or her the middle finger.
Any hope of getting rehired after that? No.
Yahoo! Sports’ Charles Robinson explains more:
"If the finance of sports has shown us anything, billionaires don’t react well when being called on the carpet for their decisions. Even less so when they feel they’re being told how to conduct their businesses. And when it’s a player challenging them in the legal realm, it’s basically the career kiss of death. Particularly if that player is someone like Kaepernick, whose fan popularity skews to either heroic or hated. If he was indeed facing an orchestrated freeze-out before this moment, it’s a safe bet his accusations of collusion and conspiracy will deliver his career only into the deepest of nuclear winters."
Whatever chances Kap had to see an NFL field again are gone now. Before the grievance, perhaps some team out there, somewhere, had a faint idea Kaepernick might be a plausible option if all others were exhausted.
No way now. Not a chance.
More from Niner Noise
- 49ers 2023 NFL Draft tracker: Pick-by-pick news and analysis
- Predicting 49ers NFL Draft picks by looking at final mocks
- DraftKings NFL Draft Promo – Win $150 Guaranteed on Any $5 Bet
- 2023 NFL Draft: EDGE Byron Young could be impact player for 49ers
- 5 low-key NFL Draft options for 49ers who are flying under the radar
In all likelihood, Kaepernick knew this too. Just like he knew taking a knee would put his career in serious jeopardy.
So, perhaps, all he’s doing is offering up one final word to his former employer, and it’s not of the friendly variety. After all, it’s going to be nearly impossible to prove 32 different franchises, as approved by the NFL as a whole, committed to a conspiracy to keep him out of the league.
Maybe such accusations happened, or maybe they didn’t. Proving it is a matter unto itself.
Kaepernick probably won’t have the satisfaction of achieving this. But he did, for all intents and purposes, effectively thumb his nose at the NFL on the way out the door.
Next: Colin Kaepernick remains the NFL's ultimate enigma
And the league will calmly ask him to not let that door hit him in the back on the way out.