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I'm not buying the fallout for his views take on this at all. If one of the 32 teams needs a player at a certain position but a player comes with some baggage, and there are no other choices, said player will get calls.
Since Harbaugh is in Michigan, no longer his coach, Kap went downhill, not the player he was and you don't have to have great football knowledge to see it. He hasn't progressed as a QB in terms of understanding defenses, his reads, makes too many mistakes. Other players on the team were visibly frustrated with his QB play and it showed. These things are why he hasn't gotten calls, not necessarily all related to his views.
If he were thought of as a top tier QB.. Someone would be calling. Regardless of politics.
Having him as a backup for many teams would be a distraction. Seattle, it could work, as would Green Bay or Pittsburgh or New England.. Somewhere they have an entrenched starting QB where there's no question that Kap would not start unless there were an injury. The problem with these places.. They aren't going to pay him starting QB money.
You put him somewhere like Chicago or Houston.. Very bad fit. While he might be a good mentor so far as football to a Watson or similar.. You don't want him pushing to start over your first round draft choice. or the fan base calling for him to start over the first round draft choice.
So, in reality, out of 32 teams.. There's maybe 7 or 8 that would be a good fit.. and pretty much zero that will pay him what he wants.
Seattle could have 'ol Clipboard Jesus (Whitehurst) backing up Wilson for a hell of a lot less than Kap and they'll get the exact same out of both.
He went from starting in Super Bowl 47, to losing his starting job to Blaine Gabbert. That's quite a downfall.
If a team thinks he's worth the time and money to employ, they'll do it. Right now it would seem no team is interested. That should be the end of the discussion. None of this would have been news a year ago.
... inject ... personal political views where they are not wanted and don't belong. ... political views and propensity to express them improperly and inappropriately in the workplace.
In my view, one of the great things about sports and other pockets of entertainment used to be their role as comic relief, refuge, entertainment from the drama and drudgery of our own lives.
Unfortunately, since the onset of cable TV news, politics has increasingly become theater - and at an accelerating pace as the initial impact of 24-hours news has waned -, another form of entertainment, however disgusting and macabre, and it has spilled over into what used to be mainstream sports.
Yes, it annoys some of us, even to the point of consuming less of the sports product (I certainly have, though also for other reasons), but the powers that be calculate that it may attract other people, more than making up for any marginal losses; same goes for Sunday night, Thursday night and foreign games, which personally I can't stand, but that pales into insignificance in comparison to the thousands of fans they gain in London, for example.
So the annoyed football fan has to manage his exposure to the aspects of the product that do not suit him or even disgust him; and thanks to technology there is an increasing number of ways to do just that.
Back on topic, having said all of the above, I agree with others who argue that if the player in question could fill a particular need for a team at the right price, someone would sign him. But, think about it, there are only, what, around 96 (32x3) professional quarterbacks in the entire United States among a population of some 300,000,000, so the competition is extremely fierce.
In short, for many of us an athlete's political loud-mouthing impairs our entertainment value, but there must also be other things wrong with this guy on the field of play that team owners, managers, and coaches also perceive.
If the NFL is going to play the national anthem before a game, where it has no place, then he has the right of protest. The NFL starts this by pretending their sport has anything to do with anything, and trying to connect it to patriotism. It's a professional for profit sport, the anthem has no place here. So that's what it is, he exercised his rights and people seems obtuse to that fact. Deny him his rights and you open the door for your rights to be denied.
Anyway, he's absolutely being targeted. Even at his asking price he's better, and has more upside, than a lot of guys getting big money right now. NFL owners and GMs are very petty folks as has been shown over and over again. They'll definitely do things out of spite. They'll also hire criminals and dopers without batting an eye so have no firm ethical ground to stand on.
That said Kaep certainly needs a QB coach to refine his progression which took a hit when the Niners dumped the head coach. That hurt the team and Kaep. All because the GM didn't 'like' the coach. Good business sense there.
I don't want to keep arguing the point but watching him last year, he doesn't have more upside. He really makes major mistakes every time he has the ball if he can't take off and run. Teams aren't doing this out of spite, bottom line is if a team needs a player, they will sign them. Thirty two teams doing something for spite, don't think so.
Any team that doesn't want the controversy can sit him down and lay down some ground rules, so that's not the issue. The issue is he just doesn't have what it takes to be a starter in this league and he may need to stay unemployed for a while longer before his ego allows him to accept anything less.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JonasW
If the NFL is going to play the national anthem before a game, where it has no place, then he has the right of protest.
His right to protest while representing his employer does not come with a guarantee that there won't be repercussions from said employer.
Unless the rookie is ready to start Kap is better than the rest of the Texans quarterbacks. Hire the scumbag.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DRob4JC
That's not happening.
He's apparently no longer good enough to be worth the risk of damaging a franchise.
He did his free speech. Don't get mad at everyone else exercising their freedom as well.
i agree with drob at this point. kapernick has lost some of what he was when he broke into the league. right now if i were to take a chance on signing him, it would be as a back up, even if i had just drafted a quarterback, i would start the rookie over kaepernick at this point in time, unless kap could show me that he was ready to be a team player again, and showed me what it was that made him a top NFL prospect in his first few years in the league.
in fact i would prefer to go with RGlll as a starter over kaepernick, especially if RGlll were to be that mobile quarterback he was in his first season.
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