“People who work together will win, whether it be against complex football defenses, or the problems of modern society.” – Vince Lombardi
We thought the intensity of the reaction to Colin Kaepernick’s on field protests had died down a bit. Football’s long off-season combined with Kaepernick opting out of his 49ers contract last spring seemed to remove some of the oxygen from the flames. Now new sparks are flying. During the last ten days, when most “old” news was cleared from the headlines because of Charlottesville and North Korea (even the Russian collusion story went silent), the Kaepernick drama managed to reassert itself. The start of the 2017 NFL season being just over a week away has a lot to do with it, but now there’s a new twist to the story. First a little context, because we know not everyone is familiar with the background.
Colin Kaepernick is a professional football player who made news almost exactly one year ago by kneeling instead of standing during the pre-game playing of the national anthem. He did this during each game he suited up for in the 2016 season, saying he was protesting racism and police brutality. Kaepernick’s personal background gives him a unique perspective on racism. His biological mother is white and his biological father black. Six weeks after his birth, he was given up for adoption to a white couple who raised him to adulthood along with a white sister and brother. Kaepernick played football at the University of Nevada, Reno and graduated in December 2010 with a degree in Business Management. In the 2011 NFL draft he was picked by the San Francisco 49ers in the 2nd round (36th pick overall). He was a backup quarterback for the 2011 season and for more than half of the 2012 season. His big break came in the 2nd half of the 2012 season when the 49ers starting quarterback was injured and Kaepernick replaced him in his 1st NFL game as a starter. His excellent play retained him the starting role, even though the previous starting quarterback had fully recovered from his injury. He went on to lead the 49ers to the Super Bowl that year (they lost to Baltimore). He was the 49ers starting quarterback for the entire 2013 season, leading the team to a 12-4 record and another playoff run to the NFC championship game.
Having achieved stardom, with impressive quarterback statistics and team success to back it up, Kaepernick negotiated a contract extension in 2014 worth $126M, making him the 6th highest paid quarterback in the NFL. Unfortunately for the 49ers, that same year was the start of a downward slide for the team. They went 8-8 in the 2014 season, followed by a dismal 5-11 season in 2015. Kaepernick’s poor play lost him the starting job at the beginning of the 2016 season, and though he did regain it part way through, the 49ers finished 2016 with a devastating 2-14 record. The nadir for the team came in October of 2016 when ESPN ranked the 49ers franchise dead last of all 122 professional sports teams across football, baseball, basketball, and hockey. But it was a gesture made by Kaepernick at the start of the 2016 season that captured all the headlines.
Starting with the preseason games in 2016, Kaepernick first sat and then knelt when the National Anthem was played prior to the start of each game. He explained in his own words, “…I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color…”. We are not going to debate the legitimacy of Kaepernick’s views on oppression and racism. They are his own and he obviously feels them deeply. What we do question is the efficacy of his method of protest, as that was the heart of the controversy that surrounded him for the remainder of the 2016 season.
Fast forward to the spring of 2017. Taken in isolation, Kaepernick’s quarterback statistics were not all that bad. However, those stats had long since ceased to translate into wins for his team, the primary (and in many cases only) statistic team owners care about. The 49ers had already hired a new coach with a new style of play that did not match well with Kaepernick’s strengths. Informed he was to be cut from the team, Kaepernick decided to opt out of his contract with the 49ers in March of 2017 and become a “free agent”. This is when the new phase of the controversy started.
Coincident with opting out of his 49ers contract, Kaepernick is reported to have told ESPN that he would now stand for the anthem during the 2017 season (Why?). On the surface, this might appear to improve his marketability, and Kaepernick and many of his supporters expected him to be picked up by another NFL team in short order. That didn’t happen. Now there are accusations that the NFL owners are “blackballing” Kaepernick, intent on keeping him out of the league. Recently, various Kaepernick support groups have sprung up to protest and even threaten a boycott if the NFL does not act to help Kaepernick get signed by a team for the 2017 season.
We believe that what has been lost in all the attention on Kaepernick and his chosen style of protest against racism are the natural forces of capitalism. Profit and winning are the business drivers of the NFL. For the moment at least, no NFL owner can pencil out a way to improve their chance of earning more money or winning more games by signing Colin Kaepernick. There is little or no altruism in the competitive business world, and this is certainly true in the business of the NFL. Should something change in the present circumstances which would somehow predict a positive return on an investment in Kaepernick, we have no doubt he would be signed in a heartbeat. There are a number of factors that go into Kaepernick’s present marketability in the NFL. While it would be naive to believe his anthem protests have nothing to do with his current situation, his performance as a player in the last two years, particularly as it translates to team victories, leaves a lot to be desired. Those currently convinced he is being sidelined solely for his protests need to open their eyes to the business realities of the sport.
There is arguable evidence that Kaepernick’s anthem protests have damaged the NFL, which we don’t think he intended to do. Television ratings for NFL games dropped dramatically in 2016. This could legitimately have been the result of multiple factors (including the election coverage), but common sense and a number of fan polls point directly to the anthem protests that Kaepernick started. There are a lot of deeply patriotic people in the US who, like us, simply felt a punch to the gut watching Kaepernick kneel for the anthem. It only got worse when copycats around the league began kneeling and adding their own twists as well, such as fist raising or standing with their backs to the flag and field. The logical connection between raising awareness of racism and protesting the National Anthem is tenuous at best and simply doesn’t exist at all for many Americans. This was Kaepernick’s big miscalculation. A significant portion of onlookers, including most NFL fans, viewed his gesture as unpatriotic rather than one designed to target racial oppression.
Unfortunately, despite Kaepernick’s current willingness to stand for the anthem and his acute desire to play football, the controversial image of players kneeling during the anthem is now indelibly linked with his name. The bottom line, however, is that NFL owners are out to make money and win games. If they believe Kaepernick will help them to do one or both, they will hire him.