Kaepernick Workout

[Dolphster]

Can't believe nobody has started a thread about Kap's workout on Saturday.  Especially since it should prove to be a delightfully inflammatory discussion. I'll start.  The NFL only did this in the hopes of getting away from all the negative PR they have gotten over the years about Kap so they can say, "We didn't blackball him, look, we are giving him a shot."  And Kap did his last minute change as another way to give the middle finger to the NFL, get more of the attention that he loves, and it also illustrated that he has essentially zero interest in playing in the NFL again.  Just as the NFL and every NFL team has zero interest in him playing again.     Annnnddddd, GO! 

[Sunstroke]

Saw this coming a mile away... Kaep wasn't looking for a job, just another platform to give a speech.

Mission accomplished...

[masterfins]

Saw this coming a mile away... Kaep wasn't looking for a job, just another platform to give a speech.

Mission accomplished...

Yup.  I guess he was hoping that no one would show up, then when so many teams were sending Reps they decided to move it an hour away to give them the middle finger.  If he really wanted a job in the NFL he wouldn't have done this.

[Dolphster]

I did think his Kunta Kinte t-shirt was a classy touch.  It is as if he thought, "Just in case a team actually wants to take a closer look at me, I better wear this shirt just to make sure they don't."

[Fau Teixeira]

from what I read the NFL tried to have him sign a waiver as part of the workout that went well above and beyond a regular camp workout waiver and included stuff about any future legal actions which he declined to sign as that was the whole point of the workout

[EDGECRUSHER]

from what I read the NFL tried to have him sign a waiver as part of the workout that went well above and beyond a regular camp workout waiver and included stuff about any future legal actions which he declined to sign as that was the whole point of the workout

I didn't see anything concrete on this, just rumors. If this were true I feel that Kap would've given details about it to get people on his side. Without them, the only concrete facts we know is how the NFL bent over backwards for him. They did all of this to protect individual franchises. Let's say the Bengals brought him in and he sucked and they didn't hire him, Kap can turn around and call them racist or whatever. The NFL held it to shield the franchises from things like that happening.

[Dave Gray]

This is just an optics game.  There's been plenty of opportunity to sign Kaep.  Teams don't want to.  He's good enough to play, but comes with too much press for a backup QB.  Kaep wants the stage, the NFL wants plausible deniability that they didn't shut him out.  It's all a phony circus.

[MyGodWearsAHoodie]

I did think his Kunta Kinte t-shirt was a classy touch.  It is as if he thought, "Just in case a team actually wants to take a closer look at me, I better wear this shirt just to make sure they don't."

How the fuck is Kunta Kinte a controversial figure?  I understand the controversy around kneeling or the Fidel Castro shirt.  But Kunta Kinte isn’t Jane Fonda.  The only people who would consider Kunta the villain are white supremacists  that oppose the  the 13th amendment. 

[CF DolFan]

This is just an optics game.  There's been plenty of opportunity to sign Kaep.  Teams don't want to.  He's good enough to play, but comes with too much press for a backup QB.  Kaep wants the stage, the NFL wants plausible deniability that they didn't shut him out.  It's all a phony circus.

I heard a Colin supporter and Tim Tebow fan break it down better than anyone else I've heard.

No team wants their back-up QB to bring drama to the team. Colin chooses to and Tebow brings it because of overzealous fans and media. Both QBs were good enough to be given a back up job but they aren't worth the trouble they bring with them.

How the fuck is Kunta Kinte a controversial figure?  I understand the controversy around kneeling or the Fidel Castro shirt.  But Kunta Kinte isn’t Jane Fonda.  The only people who would consider Kunta the villain are white supremacists  that oppose the  the 13th amendment. 

Unfairly treated persecuted black guy. I'd say that's pretty controversial for a guy who is trying to paint himself as that to wear it. If Dan wore it then I don't think it would be. It's pretty obvious what he was doing.

[Sunstroke]

I did think his Kunta Kinte t-shirt was a classy touch.  It is as if he thought, "Just in case a team actually wants to take a closer look at me, I better wear this shirt just to make sure they don't."

It wasn't quite as cringe-worthy as the "cartoon piggies in police uniforms" socks that he wore to training camp back in 2016, but it definitely made me feel like football wasn't quite as much of a priority as presenting himself as a persecuted black man.

[MyGodWearsAHoodie]

I heard a Colin supporter and Tim Tebow fan break it down better than anyone else I've heard.

No team wants their back-up QB to bring drama to the team. Colin chooses to and Tebow brings it because of overzealous fans and media. Both QBs were good enough to be given a back up job but they aren't worth the trouble they bring with them.

Unfairly treated persecuted black guy. I'd say that's pretty controversial for a guy who is trying to paint himself as that to wear it. If Dan wore it then I don't think it would be. It's pretty obvious what he was doing.

Kunta stood up for what is right.  Kap kneeled to protest cops murdering unarmed (black) civilians with no reprocutions.  If you have a problem with someone honoring Kunta, or Harriot Tudman, or Rosa Parks, but don’t see naming schools or monuments after Robert E Lee or Forrest Bedford as racist than YOU are the problem.  

[stinkfish]

^ Or Washington, or Jefferson for that matter.

[Spider-Dan]

The fact that the league scheduled this workout on a Saturday - when such workouts are normally on Tuesdays - and was going to prevent any media or Kap himself from taping it tells you all you needed to know.  This was theater from the very beginning, designed to give the NFL an out to say, "He can't play anymore."

But the workout happened anyway and the tape is out there.  So what's the problem?  Did Kap look worse than Geno Smith or Nathan Peterman?  Did he look worse than Luke Falk or Brian Hoyer?

Let's not compare Kap to Tebow; Tebow was not on an NFL team strictly for football reasons (he's a terrible QB and refused to change positions).  If you're telling me that teams stayed away from Tebow because of the publicity, you're crazy; the most anti-publicity team in the league (NE) signed him to a contract.  NFL owners love the kind of "controversy" Tebow brings, which is essentially just a function of whether or not they personally agree with the player in question.

[CF DolFan]

Kap could have done exactly the same workout on Sunday if he felt that Saturday was rigged against him. He gets media anytime he wants it.  The fact is he chose to do his own thing last minute. It was planned out. Many of his supporters have come out admitting he's interested in attention and not playing. 

[Spider-Dan]

Kap could have done exactly the same workout on Sunday if he felt that Saturday was rigged against him.

...what?

When the NFL announced that this workout would be less than a week later, on a Saturday, Kap asked to have it moved to a Tuesday (when teams normally work out players).  The league said no.  So he went ahead with Saturday, with a bunch of teams agreeing to send reps.  It wasn't until the NFL a) made him sign a bunch of extra paperwork that is outside the scope of normal workout waivers and b) prohibited ANYONE but the league office taping the workout that Kap bailed on it.

Now, it is true that Kap could have held his own workout in, say, St. Louis on a Tuesday at any point over the last three years... and had no NFL team attend it.  But given that teams were already committed to sending reps to Atlanta, at that point it made the most sense to have a workout on that Saturday in the same city, so that teams who had already committed to sending reps could just have the reps drive to a different field in the same city and watch the workout.  (Of course, most teams elected not to do this.)

What I don't understand is why the "He doesn't even want to play" people have chosen this event as their battle cry.  I mean, Kap could have gone to play in the CFL, or even the AAF, if he really Just Wanted To Play Football.  So why are we now pretending that having standards and/or conditions are a new thing?