A new report questions the sincerity of teams who expressed interest earlier this summer in bringing quarterback Colin Kaepernick back to the NFL.
Citing a source, Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio called that interest “fake” and said it resulted “seemingly out of guilt” during the aftermath of the Memorial Day weekend death of George Floyd in Minnesota.
“There has been zero interest expressed as to Kaepernick ‘in months,'” Florio wrote in a piece published Monday.
Kaepernick, 32, last played in the NFL in 2016, the year in which he took a knee during the national anthem as a protest against racism and police brutality.
Floyd, an unarmed Black man, died on May 25 when a white Minneapolis police officer kneeled on his neck for more than eight minutes while making an arrest.
Floyd’s death sparked worldwide protests and appeared to rekindle interest in Kaepernick, who started 58 games for the San Francisco 49ers — including Super Bowl XLVII.
“At one point along the way, NFL Media reported that teams had contacted ‘friends and associates’ of Kaepernick, and that they would be contacting his agent when they ‘get to the point where they’re confident enough that they think they can work out a contract,'” Florio wrote. “So either they never got to the point of confidence that they can work out a contract, or it was all just more bulls—.”
.”.. For more than three years, teams have hidden behind ‘he wouldn’t want anything other than a starting job’ to excuse not offering him anything other than a starting job,” Florio continued. “Meanwhile, for more than three years, no one has bothered to even ask.”
–Field Level Media
