On Friday it was announced that former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick and safety Eric Reid settled out of court with the National Football League (NFL) for an undisclosed amount of money.
Kaepernick and Reid had sued the NFL for blackballing them—colluding to keep them unemployed—because in 2016 they kneeled for the U.S. national anthem (“The Star-Spangled Banner”) before NFL football games, to protest police brutality against blacks. Their actions inspired a wave of other protests throughout the league.
Reid eventually signed with the Carolina Panthers, but the more visible Kaepernick is still unemployed in football.
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On the one hand, the settlement is a capitulation: Kaepernick is settling for a lesser heap of cash than he would get if the case had been ruled in his favor. Also, the NFL avoids an admittance of guilt, and the embarrassment of details (revealing emails, harmful testimonies) that would otherwise go public.

Photo: Scott Cunningham/Getty Images
On the other hand, “Kap” achieved something rare: he was able to administer a black eye to a multi-billion dollar corporation (unlike fellow NFL QB Tom Brady with Deflategate), and he’ll continue to be an icon and standard bearer of social consciousness in sports. Like boxer Muhammed Ali and Olympic sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos, his stature will only grow in coming years (assuming he steers clear of #MeToo).
Kaepernick has already garnered a multi-year endorsement from Nike, which will only get sweeter. It’s also still possible that a team owner might grow a backbone and sign him to a contract (the Panthers owner, perhaps?).
Beyond this are the damning depositions by league owners Jerry Jones (Dallas Cowboys) and Stephen Ross (Miami Dolphins), who claimed that a certain pubescent, pontificating president’s meddling forced a cowed NFL into making a rule change: players are now required to stand for the anthem. (longitudes: are clenched fists and bowed heads still permitted, or will prohibition of these gestures also now be added to contracts?)
The president, well-known in reality television circles for his enthusiastic embrace of firing employees, not only went on record urging the firing of players who protest during the anthem, but went so far as threatening a change in “tax law” to penalize teams who don’t crack down. Legal experts are now analyzing possible “government infringement upon players’ First Amendment rights.”
While Herr Donald needs little assistance in damning his own legacy, the NFL’s image has only further eroded with its blackballing and government-dictated rule changes. It comes after a successful $1 billion suit by former players over concussion-related injuries that the league had, for years, denied…monies which are, reputedly, still unpaid.
Kap, longitudes is with you. Happy President’s Day.

Photo: Getty Images
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