Everyone has their own (likely strong) opinion for why Colin Kaepernick remains unemployed. But Ray Lewis insists the free agent quarterback would have a job by now if it wasn’t for one social media post.
The Baltimore Ravens perhaps were the closest team to signing Kaepernick this offseason, as the club had direct conversations with the 29-year-old in late July and early August. The Ravens went in another direction, though, and Lewis believes a tweet sent by Kaepernick’s girlfriend is to blame.
“We were going to close the deal to sign him,” the former Ravens linebacker said Tuesday night on Showtime’s “Inside the NFL,” via Pro Football Talk. “(Ravens owner) Steve Bisciotti said, ‘I want to hear Colin Kaeperkick speak to let me know that he wants to play football.’
“And it never happens because that picture comes up the next day.”
The “picture” Lewis is referring to was an Aug. 2 tweet by Nessa Diab, Kaepernick’s girlfriend, in which she compared Bisciotti and Lewis to a scene from “Django Unchained” where a slave played by Samuel L. Jackson embraces a white plantation owner played by Leonardo DiCaprio.
As Lewis tells it, he was openly advocating for Bisciotti to sign Kaepernick and was close to sealing the deal when Diab’s tweet scared off Bisciotti.
“(Kaepernick’s girlfriend) goes out and put(s) out this racist gesture and doesn’t know we are in the back office about to try to get this guy signed,” Lewis said. “Steve Bisciotti has said it himself, ‘How can you crucify Ray Lewis when Ray Lewis is the one calling for Colin Kaepernick?'”
When asked what would have happened if Kaepernick’s girlfriend hadn’t sent that tweet, Lewis replied, “Then (Bisciotti is) flying him to Baltimore. I am sitting with all three of them and we are all having a conversation about bringing Colin Kaepernick in.”
A report surfaced before Diab’s tweet that Bisciotti already had misgivings about signing Kaepernick — who first generated controversy by kneeling during the national anthem last season to protest social injustice in America — so we’re not sure how much that tweet actually factored in. Either way, though, it’s looking like Kaepernick will begin the season without an NFL team.
Thumbnail photo via Steve Mitchell/USA TODAY Sports Images
