The term has been used so liberally the past several months that I felt like it’d behoove me—and the readers here—to actually look up the definition of “blackball.” Thanks to Merriam-Webster for furnishing it:
1. To vote against; especially, to exclude from membership by casting a negative vote.
2. To exclude socially, ostracize or boycott.
2. To exclude socially, ostracize or boycott.
The question of why Colin Kaepernick is unemployed has been hotly debated since he opted out of his Niners’ contract in early March (which he did to get ahead of their plan to release him) and became an unrestricted free agent. I’ve been consistent on this one—and it’s not about what I think, but I what know, having spoken with someone with just about every team in the league about it over that time.
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| Colin Kaepernick is not expected to be in a uniform on an NFL sideline when the regular season begins next week. |
But as The MMQB wraps up its series on the anthem protests across the NFL, and Kaepernick’s place in the debate, and looked for a new way to approach this story, I wanted to go to the teams and ask why they individually decided to stay away. I went to teams that would have had reason to kick the tires on backup or stopgap starter-level quarterbacks, and granted anonymity in pursuit of honesty.
And so we’re going to bring you the reasons a number of these teams decided that it was unnecessary to even go to ownership with the possibility of signing him, not so much to prove the point I’ve been trying to make, but rather to illustrate why his situation is more complicated than many want to concede.
In this week’s Game Plan, we’ll check back on the Browns and their decision to go with DeShone Kizer; see how the draft’s forgotten quarterback is faring so far; explain why the Lions did not in any way overpay for Matthew Stafford; and get an update on where Ezekiel Elliott stands. Plus we’ll give you some things to keep an eye on going into the final cutdown and Week 1.
We start with the Kaepernick story that won’t go away, and why it’s lasted as long as it has. The main thing I learned? Teams didn’t have many internal discussions about Kaepernick. The level of interest in him as a player was such that the football people I talked to never even brought it to their owners to discuss whether or not his social stances were going to be a problem for them.
Here’s a sampling from four teams …
• Executive 1: “It’s not something we discussed, so to talk about reasoning, we’re talking hypotheticals. … Certainly he’s good enough to be a backup. … But we have a good No. 2, a guy that fits our system that we have familiarity with. He’s here for the same reason that (Dolphins coach) Adam Gase goes back to (Jay) Cutler. We know exactly what we’re going to get from the guy. Physically, Kaepernick’s more talented, but familiarity with a backup at that position, knowing exactly what you’re going to get, is more important than the ‘wow’ factor. … It’s like with [Robert Griffin III]; you had him playing a certain way, and he was a hell of a player. But as soon as defenses figured out what they were, and a specific way to play them, that’s where they had to be able to start to win from the pocket. If you can’t do that in this league, it’s tough.”
Executive 2: “From our end, it never got down to (going to the owner). To me, the protests, all that, it wasn’t even a factor for us. It was the ability to fit within our offense. He doesn’t throw the ball great, he’s more of an on-the-move, zone-read type of quarterback. He needs to be in a specific system. For us, it was a system thing. What he does well is totally outside what most teams do. And so here’s my question: I understand the Kaepernick deal, why it’s news, but nobody’s talking about RG3? I know since it’s Kaepernick, it’s what sells, but the problem that RG3 has getting a job is the same as Kaepernick for a lot of teams.”
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