Kaepernick Files Collusion Grievance, Seeks to Blame Joblessness on Trump
A Sunday report that former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick had retained legal counsel in filing an official grievance against NFL owners for collusion has now been confirmed.
With the NFL season nearing the halfway point and the cop-hating militant still without a job, his handlers have decided that now would be a perfect time to lob a live grenade into the bunker of this week’s highly-anticipated meetings between NFL owners and the players union.
The topic of the meeting is the national anthem protests that continue to this day even as viewership drops, fans hold jersey burning parties and sponsors are facing increasing pressure. Early word via a key Sports Illustrated reporter who serves as an NFL mouthpiece indicated that the league is going to offer to set aside a few weeks for “social justice” just as it does for breast cancer.
But now there is the added dilemma of Kaepernick’s escalation and a looming lawsuit against owners and according to his top attorney, they are going to further politicize the matter by dragging President Donald Trump into it.
Colin Kaepernick filed a grievance against the NFL, alleging collusion among owners to keep him out of the league https://t.co/KWyURzgGVB pic.twitter.com/HUqS1JvQdz
— Yahoo Sports (@YahooSports) October 15, 2017
Via Yahoo Sports “Colin Kaepernick’s grievance alleging collusion adds more heat to NFL owners “-meetings”:
Despite leading the San Francisco 49ers to the Super Bowl following the 2012 season, Kaepernick has remained unsigned since opting out of his contract in March. The 49ers were planning to release Kaepernick during the offseason had he not opted out of his deal.
Kaepernick’s grievance was first reported by Bleacher Report on Sunday, as well as the quarterback’s hiring of Geragos.
In a statement, Geragos said,
“We can confirm that this morning we filed a grievance under the CBA on behalf of Colin Kaepernick. This was done only after pursuing every possible avenue with all NFL teams and their executives.
“If the NFL (as well as professional sports leagues) is to remain a meritocracy, then principled and peaceful political protest – which the owners themselves made great theater imitating weeks ago – should not be punished and athletes should not be denied employment based on partisan political provocation by the Executive Branch of our government. Such a precent threatens all patriotic Americans and harkens back to our darkest days as a nation. Protecting all athletes from such collusive conduct is what compelled Mr. Kaepernick to file his grievance.
“Colin Kaepernick’s goal has always been, and remains, to simply be treated fairly by the league he performed at the highest level for and to return to the football playing field.”
The grievance comes on the heels of months of debate over whether Kaepernick was being collectively blackballed by the NFL following the “anthem protest” movement he began in 2016 with the 49ers. Meant to draw attention to social justice reform and racial inequality, various forms of protests have swept through the NFL, college and even high school ranks this season.
The ensuing furor over NFL player protests has mushroomed into a significant political platform for President Donald Trump and sparked a debate over whether such freedom of speech can lead to discipline by team owners. Trump recently told Fox News that Kaepernick should have been suspended for kneeling during the national anthem.
“I watched Colin Kaepernick and I thought it was terrible, and then [the protests] got bigger and bigger and started mushrooming, and frankly the NFL should have suspended him for one game, and he would have never done it again,” Trump said. “They could have then suspended him for two games and they could have suspended him if he did it a third time for the season, and you would never have had a problem.”
Trump’s outspoken and repeated rebukes against NFL player protests raised Kaepernick’s profile – and the controversy over anthem protests – to unprecedented levels. In turn, league owners have grappled with how to taper the political whirlwind that has enveloped the NFL this season, making anthem protests a top priority in Tuesday and Wednesday’s fall meetings.
Geragos & Geragos official statement on @Kaepernick7 who we are proud to represent pic.twitter.com/c0Jr1ugNV1
— Mark Geragos (@markgeragos) October 16, 2017
The statement only serves to bolster suspicions that the smokescreen of civil rights and social justice that have been used to justify the protests are bogus and what this is really all about is a refusal to accept the results of the election.
It also ties in very well to the campaign to demonize Trump on a daily basis via the media, through celebrity mouthpieces and in recent weeks, by hundreds of NFL players as well as Commissioner Roger Goodell and multiple owners.
The assertion that the White House was colluding with the NFL to keep Kaepernick unemployed is truly shameless and continues to ignore the basic facts that it is the fans themselves who are furious that these protests are ongoing and that Kaepernick’s beef is not a civil rights issue but rather a very simple one of workplace conduct.
Team Kaepernick is throwing a Hail Mary that they can capitalize on turning this into a racial firestorm and you can be certain that the media will be fanning the flames.
The NFL might as well just prepare for the coming black player strike and start making plans for the cancellation of the remainder of the season or maybe just quit playing at all until 2024 after Trump’s second term is finished.