by Jack Kerwin | ydkjack1@gmail.com
It’s outta control.
Has been.
From Day One.
The moment our nation’s conscious, sports or otherwise, was alerted to Colin Kaepernick’s decision to diss the National Anthem prior to the start of an NFL football game by not standing up as it played, all the hype and hoopla – both pro and con in regard to the former San Francisco quarterback – that followed has been exponentially disproportionate to the act.
People, he didn’t break the law. He broke a tradition.
That ain’t no political statement. It’s reality.
Get over it.
The fact he has been, essentially, blackballed by a multi-billion-dollar corporation that often has been supported in the past for employing substance abusers, domestic abusers, dog abusers and convicts of all sort – after the fact, mind you, in many cases – but is aghast at the thought of any team signing him now is a testament to the misappropriated stubbornness and stupidity that can infiltrate society, not to mention the cowardice that prevails among those in charge of an empire built, ironically, on toughness.
Kaep can’t get a job, huh?
No wonder. He’s facing a two-layered obstacle of clueless and cojones-less.
That’s a tough one to navigate.
Not for nothing, but what the hell difference does it make if a guy stands up for a pregame song or not? You wouldn’t even know if it weren’t brought to your attention. It affects nothing that happens between the lines – which is the whole reason you’d be attending the game in the first place.
That the tradition even exists for playing the song and standing for it remains a mystery to me.
But let’s digress …
To me, sports are about entertainment, and Kaepernick – with athletic tools far beyond the norm – has few peers in that department. Going beyond that, if the whole idea is to win, then the joke is on everyone who doesn’t want the guy back in the league.
Kaep is 28-30 overall as a starter, but 27-20 before Chip Kelly arrived. He led the 49ers to a Super Bowl appearance, and very close to a victory in it.
Hasn’t been quite the same player in the four years since. But, still, if we’re keeping it real here, you can’t even reach the count of 10 in coming up with QBs who trump him without question.
It’s true, he ain’t at the level of Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees, Ben Roethlisberger, Phillip Rivers, Carson Palmer or Russell Wilson. Maybe not Matt Ryan, either, now that longtime Atlanta signal-caller finally reached his potential last season with an MVP award and trip to the big game.
But everyone else? Sorry, they’re either too young, too inexperienced or too erratic to make a definitive call of being “better” than Kaepernick – and that includes two-time Super Bowl champ Eli Manning and so-called experts’ long-time favorite Andrew Luck and current trendy guy Derek Carr. Or they’re just, flat-out, not as good.
Take a look at the Eagles’ Carson Wentz. While the team and its fan base are putting an entire future on him, pointing out how much he showed last season as a rookie, consider this: Wentz’s quarterback rating of 79.3 for 2016 was a far cry from Kaep’s 90.7 … during a campaign in which the latter was universally stated to have “sucked.”
In four fewer games and 276 less pass attempts, Kaep threw the same amount of TDs: 16. He also ran for 318 more yards and the same amount of scores: 2.
Yo, forget him being a back-up. There are 32 starting QB jobs in the NFL. Kaep certainly is more than qualified to hold down at least half of them.
That he isn’t being given the opportunity to do so … that’s outta control.
It’s outta control.
Has been.
From Day One.
The moment our nation’s conscious, sports or otherwise, was alerted to Colin Kaepernick’s decision to diss the National Anthem prior to the start of an NFL football game by not standing up as it played, all the hype and hoopla – both pro and con in regard to the former San Francisco quarterback – that followed has been exponentially disproportionate to the act.
People, he didn’t break the law. He broke a tradition.
That ain’t no political statement. It’s reality.
Get over it.
The fact he has been, essentially, blackballed by a multi-billion-dollar corporation that often has been supported in the past for employing substance abusers, domestic abusers, dog abusers and convicts of all sort – after the fact, mind you, in many cases – but is aghast at the thought of any team signing him now is a testament to the misappropriated stubbornness and stupidity that can infiltrate society, not to mention the cowardice that prevails among those in charge of an empire built, ironically, on toughness.
Kaep can’t get a job, huh?
No wonder. He’s facing a two-layered obstacle of clueless and cojones-less.
That’s a tough one to navigate.
Not for nothing, but what the hell difference does it make if a guy stands up for a pregame song or not? You wouldn’t even know if it weren’t brought to your attention. It affects nothing that happens between the lines – which is the whole reason you’d be attending the game in the first place.
That the tradition even exists for playing the song and standing for it remains a mystery to me.
But let’s digress …
To me, sports are about entertainment, and Kaepernick – with athletic tools far beyond the norm – has few peers in that department. Going beyond that, if the whole idea is to win, then the joke is on everyone who doesn’t want the guy back in the league.
Kaep is 28-30 overall as a starter, but 27-20 before Chip Kelly arrived. He led the 49ers to a Super Bowl appearance, and very close to a victory in it.
Hasn’t been quite the same player in the four years since. But, still, if we’re keeping it real here, you can’t even reach the count of 10 in coming up with QBs who trump him without question.
It’s true, he ain’t at the level of Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees, Ben Roethlisberger, Phillip Rivers, Carson Palmer or Russell Wilson. Maybe not Matt Ryan, either, now that longtime Atlanta signal-caller finally reached his potential last season with an MVP award and trip to the big game.
But everyone else? Sorry, they’re either too young, too inexperienced or too erratic to make a definitive call of being “better” than Kaepernick – and that includes two-time Super Bowl champ Eli Manning and so-called experts’ long-time favorite Andrew Luck and current trendy guy Derek Carr. Or they’re just, flat-out, not as good.
Take a look at the Eagles’ Carson Wentz. While the team and its fan base are putting an entire future on him, pointing out how much he showed last season as a rookie, consider this: Wentz’s quarterback rating of 79.3 for 2016 was a far cry from Kaep’s 90.7 … during a campaign in which the latter was universally stated to have “sucked.”
In four fewer games and 276 less pass attempts, Kaep threw the same amount of TDs: 16. He also ran for 318 more yards and the same amount of scores: 2.
Yo, forget him being a back-up. There are 32 starting QB jobs in the NFL. Kaep certainly is more than qualified to hold down at least half of them.
That he isn’t being given the opportunity to do so … that’s outta control.
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