Fresh Start_2.13: The NFL and Kaepernick are playing a game of chicken in the public eye

Joseph Leo
Sep 5, 2018 · 2 min read

Somehow just in time for the kickoff of the NFL season, Colin Kaepernick is back in the news. No not because he knelt next to the capital building, or donated more money to charity, but because of he is the face of Nike’s newest “Just Do It” ad campaign with the tagline “Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything.” Nike is catching heat from this announcement, but with dozens of athletes sharing the picture around social media the effect of the campaign will do what it was intended to do.

Where I have a problem with this is the timing of the announcement of the campaign and the recent fillings in Kaepernick’s collusion lawsuit. If at any time Kaepernick is doing this for attention it would be now. It is an odd coincidence that everything with Kaepernick is falling perfectly in line with Thursday’s opening kickoff but after all it is the court system and that does take some time, but I can’t stop thinking about the possible backlash this will bring, and with that spilling over into time when we could be taking about football.

The days of Kaepernick kneeling and doing so to raise awareness for police brutality are long gone. This issue is now about the flag, respecting military, and a collusion lawsuit. Nowhere in that last sentence does it mix well with football talk. With this timing of the ad campaign (obviously a deliberate act from the Kaepernick camp) it is a perfect time for people to reignite the fires of the kneeling controversy — messing up causal fans precious time of actually watching the football game.

This Kaepernick issue that the NFL has all over its hands will be a wrecking ball to the product as long as the collusion case is going on. Furthermore, with President Trump’s obsession with Kaepernick, we will be forever close to a random tweet denouncing Kaepernick and calling for immediate action by the NFL.

As a fan of the game, I’ve had enough. I just want to watch football and enjoy it. I could care less if players are kneeling or not, whether the national anthem is shown or not during the broadcast, and whether Kaepernick was actually black balled or not. This entire situation was mishandled by the NFL (again) and makes the “Deflate Gate” debacle look like a pony circus. However, this situation ends it needs to end quickly because the main issue brought up some two years ago is merely lost in the wind and forgotten about by many people surrounding the game. Just show me the game of football and save this travesty for the nightly news.

Joseph Leo

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Writer/Creator of The Basement View Host/Producer of The Grind Hours Podcast https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/grind-hours-podcast/id1361270470?mt=2