Colin Kaepernick: Will the NFL – and more specifically – the Green Bay Packers come calling?
Well, NFL owners and players had a “productive” meeting on social issues in Manhattan Tuesday – code for nothing but smoke and mirrors designed to placate two mutually exclusive viewpoints. There was, incredibly, no discussion of the National Anthem protests that have been designed to draw attention to the very social issues that were on the agenda. You can’t make this stuff up.
Look, the owners and commish Roger Goodell don’t want to lose their mostly white male Trumpette fans who think kneeling for the Anthem is akin to selling secrets to the Russians. (No, wait, that would be all right.) But the owners and Goodell don’t want to alienate their mostly black work force either. Expect continuing stasis.
Meanwhile, there were reports that Colin Kaepernick was invited to the meet but declined to attend, but Mark Geragaos – the lawyer Kap hired to file his grievance against the NFL – denied there was an invite. Apparently, the players wanted him there but there was no invite from the owners.
With Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers out with a broken collarbone – again – and thus not due back until the playoffs, if at all this season, Pack fans are looking to Kap as a possible replacement. Not so, Coach Mike McCarthy, who snapped at a reporter, “Did you just listen to the question I just answered? OK, I got three years invested in Brett Hundley, two years invested in Joe Callahan. The quarterback room is exactly where it needs to be” – apparently far away from Kap.
Finally, for those who think this is a workplace issue and the players’ need to buck up, two law professors say the law – as in the Constitution, the Civil Rights Act and labor law – is on the players’ side.