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L.A. Times Lectures NFL’s Goodell: Make Sure League Hires Kaepernick

   DailyWire.com
Colin Kaepernick looks to pass during his NFL workout held at Charles R Drew high school on November 16, 2019 in Riverdale, Georgia.
Carmen Mandato/Getty Images

On Tuesday, The Los Angeles Times, ever mindful of its obligation to push a leftist agenda, lectured the National Football League in an editorial, writing that National Football League Commissioner Roger Goodell can only be taken seriously about his pledge to confront racism “by ensuring Colin Kaepernick has a job again as an NFL quarterback.”

The Times editorial board, aware that Kaepernick’s record after his initial stellar start was nothing to write home about, hedged, “We can spend hours dissecting Kaepernick’s abilities as a player,” but then surmised, “He didn’t get a tryout with a single team, and that’s not because of his skills or his salary,” citing “various NFL insiders and analysts,” concluding that the supposed lack of a tryout (the NFL offered him a special tryout in November 2019 but Kaepernick skipped it) was because “he had the audacity during the 2016 season to ‘take a knee’ while the national anthem was playing.”

In February, as The Daily Wire reported, XFL Commissioner Oliver Luck, the father of former NFL quarterback Andrew Luck, said during an interview with NPR’s Michael Martin that his league would have welcomed Kaepernick, but Kaepernick’s agent made “exorbitant” demands. Asked why the XFL would not “distinguish” itself from the NFL “by offering an opportunity to somebody who has a track record as a great player, who has a lot of following,” Lick responded. “We gave it some thought. We have some pretty significant salary restrictions, you know. We’re a start-up league, so we want to make sure that we can be fiscally responsible and fiscally prudent. And the, you know, salary requirements that some folks, you know, shared with us were in our case exorbitant, so we, you know, couldn’t go down that path.”

Martin pressed, “Are you saying that you approached him or his representatives, and he wasn’t willing to talk to you because of salary requirements?” Luck replied, “I’m saying that we spoke with his representative, and the salary requirements that were broached in that conversation were exorbitant and certainly out of our range.”

The Daily Wire reported in December 2019 that after Kaepernick decided to skip a special workout offered to him by the league in November, Goodell stated, “This was about creating an opportunity. We created that opportunity. It was a unique opportunity, a credible opportunity and he chose not to take it. I understand that.” He added, “We’ve moved on.” the commissioner added.

In an ESPN report, league insiders consistently maintained that the league, particularly Goodell, had genuinely offered Kaepernick a real opportunity to play again, but “distrust” and “resentment” for the league within Kaepernick’s camp led to his decision to skip the NFL-organized event less than an hour before it began.

Former Jets head coach Rex Ryan added on ESPN’s “Get Up,” “The NFL doesn’t have to have this kid play. I’m sorry. What I see on the video is look, if you want to break down the little video , you see, you see, is he throwing the ball behind him, too much air on his deep ball, yeah all those type of things. But that wasn’t about this. As a coach, you don’t want this circus in the locker room. And, I’m sorry, but that’s what it is. Is it going to be worth all the extra media? You’re going to have a backup quarterback having press conferences.”

Kaepernick is still making politically charged statements; on May 28,  Kaepernick tweeted during the violent Minneapolis protests after George Floyd’s death, “”When civility leads to death, revolting is the only logical reaction. The cries for peace will rain down, and when they do, they will land on deaf ears, because your violence has brought this resistance. We have the right to fight back!”

In August 2017, NFL legend Jim Brown took issue with Kaepernick’s attitude, telling The Post Game:

Colin has to make up his mind whether he’s truly an activist or whether he’s a football player. Football is commercial. You have owners. You have fans. And you want to honor that if you’re making that kind of money. … I’m going to give you the real deal: I’m an American. I don’t desecrate my flag and my national anthem. I’m not gonna do anything against the flag and the national anthem. I’m going to work within those situations. But this is my country, and I’ll work out the problems, but I’ll do it in an intelligent manner.

The Times concluded, “Goodell’s credibility, and the league’s, is on the line here (which Goodell seems to recognize; on Monday, he told ESPN that he would welcome a team signing Kaepernick, and ‘I encourage them to do that’). If the NFL wants the world to believe that it respects its players’ voices and their protests, it needs Kaepernick back in uniform.”

The Daily Wire, headed by bestselling author and popular podcast host Ben Shapiro, is a leading provider of conservative news, cutting through the mainstream media’s rhetoric to provide readers the most important, relevant, and engaging stories of the day. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a member.

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