A large number of players have accused the NFL of blacklisting former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick for kneeling during the National Anthem in 2016. Kaepernick led the 49ers to back-to-back NFC Championship games until coaching changes destroyed the 49ers football team from within. Despite bad coaches, Colin was still able to play well and is the best in NFL history when it comes to touchdown-to-interception ratio. However, he remains unsigned ever since opting out of his contract in San Francisco.
Roger Goodell disputes blacklisting
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has completely refused to believe that NFL teams are blacklisting or ostracizing Colin Kaepernick for his political stance last year concerning the rising murder of young black males in America at the hands of police officers. While kneeling at the National Anthem while playing starting quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, Colin said he was trying to raise awareness and start a dialogue between both sides.
When asked, many NFL players and personnel have agreed that it worked and a dialogue was started thanks to Colin Kaepernick. However, he is now out of a job and many say that the reason is that he mixed politics and football and people didn’t like that.
According to Roger Goodell, all the teams in the NFL want to get better and if they think Kaepernick will make them better, they will sign him regardless.
Hypocrisy in the NFL
There seems to be a high level of hypocrisy in the NFL right now concerning Colin Kaepernick. While Roger Goodell claims that teams will sign him to make them better, New York Giants owner John Mara went in the face of that statement.
Mara basically said that on-field talent meant little when it came to Kaepernick because letters from fans said they would be angry if the Giants signed him after he knelt during the National Anthem.
This is the same John Mara who continued to hold onto a kicker who was facing charges of beating his wife. At that time, Mara said all that mattered was the performance on the field and the legal problems were not in the equation.
Now, he says that fans not liking Colin Kaepernick will keep the Giants from signing him.
Roger Goodell ignored that and claimed that if a team needs a quarterback that will help them win, they will reach out to Colin Kaepernick if they feel he is good enough to win for them. The most recent team to turn down Colin was the Seattle Seahawks, who went with Austin Davis instead, claiming that Colin was too good to serve as a backup quarterback in the NFL.
