Colin Kaepernick hasn’t been able to find his way onto an NFL roster for over a year, but that’s reportedly not because teams feel his talent level isn’t up to par.
Kaepernick currently is suing the NFL for collusion to keep him out of the league after he decided to take a knee during the national anthem to protest racial and social injustice during the 2016 season.
During the discovery phase of the collusion lawsuit, Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio reports that Kaepernick’s’ legal team found proof that multiple NFL teams viewed Kaepernick as a starting quarterback in the NFL in 2017.
Per Florio:
“Per a source with knowledge of the situation, internal franchise documents generated as part of the free-agency evaluation process and testimony from witnesses harvested via depositions in the collusion litigation has established that teams viewed Kaepernick as being good enough not simply to be employed by an NFL team, but to be a starting quarterback for an NFL team.”
If it wasn’t already obvious, it appears that Kaepernick’s absence from the league wasn’t based on performance after all.
The former San Francisco 49ers quarterback still has a long way to go to win his lawsuit, though. His legal team now must find proof that multiple teams and/or the league coordinated in keeping Kaepernick out of the league due to his decision to protest.
While it remains to be seen if Kaepernick’s team will find a connection, it now is clear that he is not unemployed due to his lack of talent. But that should have already been apparent.
