By Jim Coffman
Shut your piehole, Roger Goodell. And while you’re at it, tell all of your owners to zip it as well. The current generation of National Football League “leadership” has stained its legacy forever with the way it has tried desperately to repress Colin Kaepernick’s fight against police brutality in the last four years. Nothing you can say now will change that.
But there is something you could do. And it would have big ramifications right now.
In the aftermath of the torture and death of George Floyd in Minnesota, no one wants to hear what Goodell et al have to say about the issues where Kaepernick was trying to shine a light. And the quarterback did so with a remarkably nonviolent protest (taking a knee during the national anthem in 2012 after a consultation with a former Green Beret about how best to get his message out there in a respectful way). Not when we all know that their primary response continues to be an ironclad blackballing of the quarterback who was in his athletic prime when he could no longer find work in 2017.
If you want to be a part of the solution rather than a massive part of the problem, there is one obvious action to take:
Give Kaepernick a job! He is 32-years-old and would be in the prime of his professional quarterbacking career if just one of the pathetic 32 NFL teams would step up and make the hire. Former Vice President Joe Biden said last weekend that racist violence is an “open wound” in this country. Kaepernick not being allowed to make a living by doing his specialty, playing football, is a component of that festering injury.
It is about as simple as something could be in these times. All Kaepernick did in 2012 before you and your owners ran him out of your league five years later was to lead his 49ers team to within one pass of the Super Bowl. One pass in the final minute of the NFC championship game at the end of the 2012 season was intercepted by the Seahawks’ Richard Sherman rather than being completed for what would almost certainly have been the game-winning touchdown and a trip to the biggest professional football game of the year.
The quarterback went on to start the 2013 season by throwing for 412 yards in the season-opener. Injuries and other issues derailed the roll he was on in San Francisco and led to his departure but he had already shown he could do everything a championship-caliber team needs its quarterback to do.
Last weekend, Goodell tried to make it seem as though the NFL is aligned with those protesting yet another incident of horrific police brutality in this country. But a pair of Vikings linebackers quickly torpedoed that effort.
Eric Kendricks and Anthony Barr released the following statement after Goodell’s mealy-mouthed inoffensive statement: “Your statement said nothing. Your league is built on black athletes. Vague answers do nothing. Let the players know what you’re ACTUALLY doing. And we know what silence means.
The only, ONLY, thing for you do do at this point, Roger, is to help one of your owners grow a backbone. A sports nation turns its skeptical eye to you.
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Also, c’mon:
“We’ll never change the name. It’s that simple. NEVER-you can use caps.” -Daniel Snyder owner of the Washington Redskins https://t.co/5TLv43WJ2Q
— madi | BLM (@madisonmerinsky) June 2, 2020
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Plus:
“I think our problems in the NFL along those lines are minimal.”
Denver Broncos head coach Vic Fangio said he doesn’t believe racism and discrimination are issues in the NFL. https://t.co/sj6BvBVjf6
— CNN (@CNN) June 3, 2020
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Sign Kaepernick, rename the Redskins, and fire Vic Fangio. Three simple things, actually.
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Jim “Coach” Coffman welcomes your comments.
Posted on June 3, 2020