Ray Lewis says Ravens could have signed Kaepernick

A recent quote from Baltimore Ravens hall of famer Ray Lewis says that Colin Kaepernick could have signed with the Ravens had his girlfriend not sent out a Tweet that was perceived to be racist. If you are not familiar with the tweet, it used images from a Tarantino movie to compare the owner of the Ravens to a racist and Ray Lewis to an Uncle Tom. That alone is not worth talking about other than to say it could easily be perceived as offensive.

We should talk more about how people in power perceive social media posts when they make business decisions.

This is his girlfriend

It is hard to understand how someone who owns an NFL team can be so affected by a tweet from the girlfriend of someone who does not yet play for his team. Consider for a moment that Ray Lewis' assumption is that this owner did not allow the football staff to sign Kaepernick because he got upset over a tweet. No one can have skin that thin, and if they do, they need to suck it up a little. The team needed to sign Kaepernick knowing what we know now, and allowing him to pass by because of a tweet is silly.

Ray Lewis is using his rules

Ray Lewis is trying to explain to Colin Kaepernick through the media how to handle the situation. Lewis is effectively telling Kaepernick that he should be as meek as possible so that he can get back in the league. Tell your girlfriend to take the tweet back, and make sure you are very humble when you are approaching NFL teams. Ray Lewis had to do this after the trial he was involved in, but that is not necessarily the plan of action for everyone. Lewis had to testify in a trial that looked pretty bad in the media, but Kaepernick is doing social justice work while we all wonder if he is being blackballed.

You cannot tell your girl

In 2017, no man is going to tell his girl how to post things to social media.

She is a grown person who can decide what she wants to post, and owners of NFL teams ought to be wise enough to understand that that person has almost no bearing at all on how they run their team, view themselves, or are viewed by the public. A lot of people who had not seen the Tarantino movie in question would have missed the point of the tweet, or they may not have cared. Many wives of professional athletes tweet things about their teams that are scathing, and we do not see owners holding grudges over it. They want to win, and they employ the best players to make that happen. Perhaps the Ravens had other motivations because it is hard to imagine a tweet helped make this decision.