The Passion Of Colin Kaepernick
/Like a million and a half other bleary-eyed workers, I commute into Manhattan early every morning. My train ride takes me right through the foul-smelling no-man’s-land that is the wetlands between East Rutherford and Secaucus, New Jersey – a methane-laden marsh that is beautiful in a “don’t dig or you’ll find a low-level mob guy’s skeleton” kind of way.
And, as I stare off into the hazy distance, dominating the skyline is that bulging, pimple-shaped eyesore that is MetLife Stadium, home of the NFL’s New York Giants and New York Jets.
And on this sticky, humid, gray June morning, I peer out the dirt-encrusted window of the NJ transit train out towards the stadium, sitting empty in anticipation of the upcoming football season, when every Sunday it will be transformed into America’s equivalent of Chartres or the Temple at Karnak – a sacred and holy space complete with the images and symbols of venerated saints of past glory, and hordes of devout worshipers clamoring for a glimpse of greatness, desperate for the communal belonging that comes with the price of admission.
And when the Giants and Jets begin their 2017 NFL seasons, they will do so with significant quarterback questions: The Giants, with their past-his-prime two-time Super Bowl champion Eli Manning, and the Jets with a God-knows-who collection of cast-offs and scrubs (Josh McCown? Bryce Petty? Christian Hackenberg? A bucket of sand?). One team has a desperate need for an NFL-level starter, while the other surely needs an insurance policy on their over-35 and consistently mediocre franchise quarterback, Eli Manning.
Both teams reside in a massive, high-profile football market. Both teams represent a city that boasts a majority of people of color. Both teams have a history of employing “controversial” players, some of whom have had significant legal and public relations troubles; the Giants kept serial wife-beater Josh Brown on the roster until public pressure forced them to release him.
And yet both teams have refused to even offer a tryout to the lone NFL-level starting quarterback who is still available just two and a half months before the season starts.
And why have both teams chosen to move forward with subpar starting and/or backup quarterbacks rather than offering a tryout to an unsigned free agent QB who remains head, shoulders, arms, waist, knees and toes above every other available QB?
Because that man is named Colin Kaepernick. And because that man has chosen to use his fame to draw attention to the institutionalized, systemic racism and violence that primarily targets people of color.
But oh, we’re told by the preening sycophants of so-called sports journalism – almost without exception just corporate mouthpieces with communications degrees – that it’s not racism that keeps Kaepernick off NFL rosters; it’s not the blacklisting of an athlete for the dangerous sin of being both black and politically radical.
No, it’s a purely football decision because Kaepernick is just not very good … or so they tell us.
Of course, no one would argue that Kap is Aaron Rodgers or Tom Brady. But “not very good”? Really?
Is Kaepernick worse than Josh McCown, Mark Sanchez, Josh Johnson, Geno Smith, Aaron Murray, Case Keenum, David Fales or Austin Davis? If your response to reading those names was “Who the hell are those people?” then you’d be joining the tens of millions of other football fans who would ask the same question. Still, every one of those scrub QBs has landed a spot on an NFL team.
But perhaps the even better question is: “Why is this even up for debate?”
Kaepernick’s real-world performance on the second-worst team in the NFL (the San Francisco 49ers finished 2-14 in 2016) was more than adequate. In fact, Kap was one of the better QBs in the league when he got a chance to start, even on a horrendous dumpster fire of a football team. Now, let’s look at some numbers. Forgive me non-football fan readers, but this is important:
- According to the NFL’s official research organization, Kaepernick threw 16 touchdowns and only four interceptions while going 1-10 as a starter. That was good for the sixth-lowest interception percentage in the NFL, just behind Aaron Rodgers and Derek Carr, two poster boys of the NFL who were considered contenders for the Most Valuable Player award in 2016.
- Kaepernick finished the 2016 season 16th among QBs in adjusted yards per attempt (better than two Pro Bowl QBs).
- Kaepernick finished 17th in QB rating.
- Kaepernick finished 13th in touchdown percentage.
- He finished second in total rushing yards among QBs despite starting just 11 games, as well as posted the best yards per carry of any player with at least 50 carries.
In short, any objective analysis of Kaepernick’s level of play shows that he is at worst a middle of the road, average NFL QB, which should make him sought after by every single organization and earn him tens of millions of dollars. Consider the fact that Brock Osweiler last year signed a $72 million contract and performed as one of the worst QBs in the NFL, performing far worse than Kaepernick in every offensive category. And yet Kap remains unemployed. Why?
Radical Liberation Politics in a Reactionary, Oppressive League
Kaepernick’s lack of a job is less about him than it is the NFL and American society as a whole. As the numbers show – and many experts agree – Kaepernick’s performance is, by any statistical measure, worthy of an NFL job. So there must be another reason for his fall from grace.
As ESPN’s Bomani Jones eloquently wrote:
“Stop hiding behind code. Stop trumpeting the idea that sports are the ultimate meritocracy, then shrugging and say ‘thems the breaks’ in the face of a visible potential case of discrimination. It’s intellectually disingenuous at best, indefensible cowardice at worst and sounds eerily like the worst of past evaluations and coverage of black athletes…And, then perhaps, we could address the cruelest irony of this. Kaepernick’s stand was a refusal to pay homage to American ideals because he couldn’t ignore America’s reality. Now, writers and fans are ignoring those same ideals and their defense of that outlook is … it’s reality.”
Indeed, it is good old-fashioned racism and white supremacy at work in the Kaepernick saga, not some putrid garbage about reading defenses, being a pocket passer or getting rid of the ball too slowly.
It is, once again, a professional sports league dominated by the same rich white billionaires who revel in ostentatious displays of hero worship for U.S. military – it makes no difference whether those wars are unjust, illegal, imperialist wars, mind you – and other agents of the state such as politicians and cops. [MORE]
