Tag: Robert Kraft

Source: The View

The Seattle Seahawks offered Colin Kaepernick a chance to workout as an application for the backup quarterback position. But as quickly as the opportunity was offered, it was rescinded.

On talk radio a week ago, I heard a lady say it was poorly planned publicity stunt in which those making the offer from the Seahawks did not realize how the hoopla would play out. On that same station, an ESPN affiliate, a gentleman opined that the Seahawks simply made a mistake with the coaching staff feeling Kaepernick could be the missing backup piece while the administration shut down the offer in fear of the possible backlash of picking up Kaepernick.

However, the two most interesting opinions surrounded the collusion case Kaepernick has against the National Football League. The first one, opined by a second gentleman, felt it was a strategy to show there isn’t collusion amongst the League owners to blackball Colin. To him, it was a merely a tactic for the NFL to win the case against them. The fourth and final gentleman felt that the rescinded offer to workout was proof that collusion was happening.

Both of those arguments are quite plausible, and it is the combination of those last two opinions that seem very interesting. Offering a chance to workout would have been a great way to say, “look the Seattle Seahawks are not colluding with any other teams to keep Kaepernick out of the League.” But once Colin accepted the offer to workout, Seattle took back its offer to let him tryout. Score one for Kaepernick, and zero for the Seahawks. The fact that the Seahawks took back that offer makes them like they are playing games . . . smart juries and judges don’t like games when it comes to business. It smells like a scam, or in other words, a way to manipulate public opinion and further harm the target.

And Seattle should have known that was not the way to go about this after the Baltimore Ravens rescinded their offer to make Colin their quarterback this past season. The Seahawks could argue that there was a legitimate fear of backlash for hiring Kaepernick over his stance of kneeling for the national anthem after further consideration. But there is two problems wrong with that argument: (1) Kaepernick did not confirm or deny his current anthem stance, and (2) the Ravens made the same argument after extending an offer to hire him as their quarterback before rescinding that offer.

The fear of backlash appears to be a legitimate argument until one realizes it just doesn’t hold up under scrutiny. First, where was the team’s fear of backlash about drafting a young man who pleaded guilty of disorderly conduct despite a vigorous protest of the arresting police officers for domestic violence charges against Frank Clark. Furthermore, NFL teams have press agents who well equipped, or at least shoud be, to handle these types of situations.

So, maybe . . . just maybe the fourth gentleman’s opinion is on point. Perhaps, the rescinded offer is proof amongst everything else that has happened over the past year that teams within the National Football League have colluded to blackball, or blacklist, Kaepernick from its ranks. According to Black’s Law Dictionary, collusion is the deceitful agreement or compact between two or more persons, for the one party to bring an action against another for some evil purpose, as to defraud a third party of his right. In Kaepernick’s situation, that evil purpose is blackballing or blacklisting which is a form of retaliation against a party for exercising their legal rights.

Kaepernick has been overlooked by too many teams needing a qualified quarterback who subsequently select another quarterback lacking the skills–on and off the field–that Colin possesses. But that and the addition of other athletes who began this fight with Kaepernick will be taken up next week . . . .

Source: USA Breaking News