Ex-NFL star turned activist Colin Kaepernick is in a New York state of mind
It’s been seven years and former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick is still begging the league to pass. And that’s exactly what they are going to do … pass on his return.
Even Google admits he’s just an "American civil rights activist," not a quarterback. Not anymore. The perennial whiner had a subpar season in 2015 and ended it injured. He made his mark in the 2016 preseason refusing to stand for the national anthem during the game against Green Bay.
That’s when he proceeded to slam the nation that also made him a millionaire. "I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses Black people and people of color," he said after the game. He went from sitting to kneeling and created a fracture between the league and its fans as other players joined in.
That was the first of many stupid plays he made – bashing America and the NFL. He depicted police as pigs and even slammed his adoptive parents. Nope, not joking. The quarterback, who went from Super Bowl to super woke, claimed his parents had been perpetuating "racism." He was upset that they didn’t like his cornrow hairstyle.
FILE – San Francisco 49ers' Eric Reid (35), starting quarterback Colin Kaepernick (7), and Eli Harold (58) kneel during the national anthem before their game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for their NFL game at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif., on Sunday, Oct. 23, 2016. (Nhat V. Meyer/MediaNews Group/The Mercury News via Getty Images)
Yep, his parents didn’t like his hair because that generational battle never happens to anyone else. Then he publicly attacked them years later. Classy. The athlete/ingrate had a similar reaction to the NFL which gave him a net worth of $20 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth.
In a documentary, Kaepernick angrily declared that the NFL draft was like slavery: "Before they put you on the field, teams poke, prod, and examine you searching for any defect that might affect your performance." As he says this, actors in the background step out of an NFL scene where they are being analyzed and walk into another that morphs into an 1800s slave auction.
That’s the institution that Kaepernick wants to rejoin as "an elite QB option" and he’s ready to do it in a New York minute. Because these days he’s on the sidelines of the so-called civil rights movement and can’t even make the practice squad of a team that lost its starting quarterback four plays into this season.
Kaepernick didn’t just go woke after he left the NFL, he spiked the ball. He started a publishing operation and released a book, titled "Abolition for The People: The Movement For A Future Without Policing & Prisons." Don’t just defund what he called the "white supremacist institution" of policing, but defund prisons. You have to be nice to all those rapists and murderers.
Then there’s his blasting the Betsy Ross flag and giving a memorably anti-American Fourth of July message on Twitter. He blamed the nation, saying "Black ppl have been dehumanized, brutalized, criminalized + terrorized by America for centuries, & are expected to join your commemoration of ‘independence’, while you enslaved our ancestors." Then he added: "We reject your celebration of white supremacy & look forward to liberation for all."
As long as it comes with a hefty NFL salary for Kaepernick.
Now, he is either in a New York state of mind or just continuing his social-justice grift and wants attention. He released a formal letter asking for the Jets to sign him to their practice squad and give him another chance … seven years after playing.
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Just in May, he was bashing the league once more because he hasn’t "seen any substantial change" since it wouldn’t hire him for a return of the Over The Hill Gang. "Obviously, not playing and being out of the NFL for six years is an indictment on where they are currently at," he said.
Kaepernick, who turns 36 in November, is a tangible reminder of how the NFL relies on instant replay. Just usually the tale of the tape happens soon after the play, not every season. Even the desperate New York football team doesn’t need the drama he would bring.
The former 49ers star inhabits a unique space in American culture. The media love him for his anti-American, anti-police diatribes. CBS journalist James Brown depicted him as a "bridge builder." And sports "journalists" regularly harangue the league pushing to get him a job.
Atlantic contributing writer Jemele Hill was promoting Kaepernick as soon as Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers got hurt. "There’s a QB right there in New Jersey who took a team to a Super Bowl and a NFC championship game. Rhymes with Happernick," she explained on X, which used to be called Twitter.
Colin Kaepernick attends the NBA game between the Toronto Raptors and the Boston Celtics at Scotiabank Arena on December 5, 2022 in Toronto, Canada. (Cole Burston/Getty Images)
The NFL and, especially, the fans are more than happy to have him benched forever. And other players, who once embraced his radical agenda, realized it ticked off the people who made them rich.
The sport has plenty of prominent Black stars at the very position Kaepernick once played. Fourteen Black QBs started week one this year, according to CBS Sports. Both Super Bowl quarterbacks this past season were Black, only they didn’t spend their time protesting. They made their marks praising the Lord.
That’s why Kaepernick’s latest stunt will lead to another incompletion. The league doesn’t want him. No team would welcome the distractions he would cause. And fans won’t forgive what he did any more than they will forget it.
Why should they?
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Dan Gainor is a freelance opinion editor for Fox News Digital.