The NFL has a vendetta against Colin Kaepernick, and there is plenty of blame and confusion to go around.
The polarizing quarterback is still a free agent, and there are few reasonable answers as to why he is not employed by a team desperately needing a quarterback. His national anthem protests initially alienated a significant and misguided portion of the NFL’s largely white middle-class fan base, and the NFL’s maniacal focus on profit continues to scare teams away from associating themselves with a controversial yet productive figure.
After another preseason filled with lackluster performances from starting and backup quarterbacks, one would think that teams would be chomping at the bit to add a consummate professional with past success, an unending dedication to charity and a refreshing lack of character issues. In spite of these positives, Kaepernick remains unemployed while woefully ineffective passers like the Ravens’ Ryan Mallett and the Broncos’ Brock Osweiler are comfortably entrenched or near the tops of their respective depth charts.
In order to prove Kaepernick is being slighted from a football perspective, let’s first pretend that, until proven otherwise, he is indeed an ineffective quarterback.
Focusing strictly on his most recent statistical output, Kaepernick was decidedly and respectably mediocre. Through 11 games last year, Kaepernick managed a 90.7 percent passer rating, good enough for 17th among quarterbacks that started the majority of their team’s games. His touchdown-to-interception ratio was good enough for seventh among the league’s qualifying quarterbacks.
His statistics from previous years call to mind a quarterback with even higher potential, when not saddled with ineffective coaching and a dismal supporting cast. Add in Kaepernick’s capabilities as a runner with the highest yards per carry among all quarterbacks according to Picking Pros statistics, and the surface evaluation suggests that he is, at the very least, a capable quarterback.
Meanwhile, the Broncos and Ravens are pointedly deciding to start or keep quarterbacks that are statistically worse than Kaepernick in just about every category.
When adjusted for a full 16 game season, Osweiler ranks below Kaepernick in nearly every single metric, including four times as many interceptions thrown. Mallett is an even worse passer and somehow remains the starter in Baltimore, with only 300 underwhelming passing attempts over a four-year career for three different teams and an occasional inability to throw to the correct team.
Even the ‘he doesn’t fit the system’ argument falls flat. Cleveland’s new starter, DeShone Kizer, mirrors Kaepernick’s mold as a mobile and deep-ball friendly passer, and would benefit from having a wizened veteran in his corner. Meanwhile, Baltimore’s coaching staff and general management have seemed eager to bring Kaepernick on as a good addition to their quarterback room, and Kaepernick’s nearly-obsessive attention to detail would put him ahead of Mallett, who has chronic problems with tasks as simple as showing up on time.
So why do these teams choose to employ less effective players at the game’s most important position? Clearly there is no football-related reason keeping Kaepernick from returning to the field.
The easy answer is to say that Kaepernick’s divisive, but important national anthem protests scares teams away.
The issue is certainly not that the players don’t agree with his stance either. One year after Kaepernick’s silent and peaceful protests began, his colleagues around the league continue to show solidarity with him and demand attention to the issue of racial justice and police brutality in America.
Therefore, from a purely football perspective, Colin Kaepernick belongs in the NFL. His peaceful protest of an important issue should be lauded. The owners that deny him employment, on the other hand, deserve all of the criticism Kaepernick has received a thousand times over.
If for whatever illogical reason Kaepernick remains unemployed when the 2017 regular season starts, ensconced fans can and should show their disapproval for the situation by actively boycotting the games themselves.
Colin Kaepernick can unquestionably make a number of NFL teams better. He is an upstanding citizen who committed himself to a protest of injustice, one of the most American things he could possibly do.
He has not committed any egregious crimes, and he is being unfairly punished for peacefully expressing his opinion in a public place. In order to right this wrong, fans must begin to hold the NFL’s owners accountable for their hypocritical business practices, and for once, it is the fan that holds all the power.
Jonah Baker can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @jonahpbake