NFL: Reports: Kaepernick filing grievance against owners for collusion

[NeverBeNormal]

Step 1: be in the top .01% of an extremely sought after profession.

How are you doing so far?

So far I'm not there. Kinda like Kap, but without the filled pockets.

 

[Live in the Now]

They obviously paid him a lot. Merely a question of how much, but he was never going to drop this case without getting a big bag.

 

[GKJ]

So this is obviously just the NFL saying 'here, go away' and not an implicit admission of wrong doing. No chance they would have proven collusion. I guess the legal fees and the circus of the process might have impacted business and the wiser investment would just be to settle the case.

They were felt they were losing. Whatever losing meant. I doubt legal fees and bad press made any kind of dent in that.

 

[Voight]

Thank the heavens this is finally over......

He wanted more than 20 million to play in the AAF.... what a joke.

So this is obviously just the NFL saying 'here, go away' and not an implicit admission of wrong doing. No chance they would have proven collusion. I guess the legal fees and the circus of the process might have impacted business and the wiser investment would just be to settle the case.

Agreed... this isn't a great look for him tho. It sort of shows that he was never fully committed tot he protest and now made tens of millions just for kneeling. A lot will say if he was "for the cause" he would have dragged this out until the end in an attempt to prove the owners were colluding.

I can see a situation where his lawyers knew they didn't have a great case and told the NFL they'd settle, Goodell accepts so this disappears and it becomes a thing of the past. If the 60 million reports are true, thats a drop in the bucket for them.

 

[Hasbro]

They were felt they were losing. Whatever losing meant. I doubt legal fees and bad press made any kind of dent in that.

Discovery and breaking the collective bargaining agreement.

 

[CamMac]

Did Kaepernick ever donate to any causes that help police build relations with inner-city community's?

If I remember right that was main reason for him kneeling. From my perspective it looks like he latched on to one of the biggest problems in our country at the time, became the face of it and pushed a divisive narrative further (pig socks and all) and made millions.

 

[Bakayoko Ono]

With the Nike deal and this, Kaepernick comes off as a genius.

 

[Live in the Now]

Did Kaepernick ever donate to any causes that help police build relations with inner-city community's?

If I remember right that was main reason for him kneeling. From my perspective it looks like he latched on to one of the biggest problems in our country at the time, became the face of it and pushed a divisive narrative further (pig socks and all) and made millions.

It has a lot more to do with the fact that he had the right to do what he wanted because it wasn't against the rules. Secondly, that NFL teams do not have the right to collude with each other to ensure nobody signed someone who would improve many teams out there.

Simple as that. People can say all they want about him being a distraction, but that's hard for me to believe considering most in those locker rooms feel the same way as him. The teams are not allowed to conspire with each other, end of story. They aren't allowed to do it just because he makes people mad, the rules are the rules. The NFL keeping this out of court when they took Tom Brady to court over bullshit says it all.

A lot of people seem to not understand that this case passed summary judgment, which means the court thought there was merit in the evidence Kaepernick's lawyers presented to merit a trial. The NFL tried to kill the lawsuit with a claim of lack of evidence and failed.

Now they paid out. Could be for a lot of reasons, I don't exactly know why. The most obvious one is that there were worse things unrelated to Kap which could be found in discovery that would have been horrible PR for the league.

 

[GKJ]

Discovery and breaking the collective bargaining agreement.

At the very least they definitely thought they could have been guilty of that, collusion, among other things, and if they were, then who knows where that leads. This throws out all the insinuations that Kaepernick couldn’t get a job because he was bad at football or had outrageous contract demands if they just up and handed him more than the contract he would’ve signed with anyone would’ve paid him.

And then if you’re a team like Saints or Eagles or a team that plausibly didn’t feel a need to persue him, what is this fight worth to you? What’s the fight worth to the Ravens who had, as they felt, 2 quarterbacks, winning a game 47-3 because the Bills started Nathan Peterman. Paying 1/32 of the settlement is already more than they should have to.

 

[CamMac]

It has a lot more to do with the fact that he had the right to do what he wanted because it wasn't against the rules. Secondly, that NFL teams do not have the right to collude with each other to ensure nobody signed someone who would improve many teams out there.

Simple as that. People can say all they want about him being a distraction, but that's hard for me to believe considering most in those locker rooms feel the same way as him. The teams are not allowed to conspire with each other, end of story. They aren't allowed to do it just because he makes people mad, the rules are the rules. The NFL keeping this out of court when they took Tom Brady to court over bull**** says it all.

A lot of people seem to not understand that this case passed summary judgment, which means the court thought there was merit in the evidence Kaepernick's lawyers presented to merit a trial. The NFL tried to kill the lawsuit with a claim of lack of evidence and failed.

Now they paid out. Could be for a lot of reasons, I don't exactly know why. The most obvious one is that there were worse things unrelated to Kap which could be found in discovery that would have been horrible PR for the league.

Yeah, I don’t care about the kneeling or even the case itself. I was just saying he was made out to be some kind of hero for kneeling and bringing attention to a topic that the whole country was already focused on and made a lot of money.

This whole thing benifited him far more than anyone else, and he made a lot more money than he would have if he played out his career.

 

[Live in the Now]

I would also say that now that he got that money, if it really was that much, he would be dumb to go back on the field.

I think he would still be a starter somewhere in this league. Maybe Denver, whose interest in him magically disappeared once he took that knee. Who knows though.

 

[Blitzkrug]

What's going to be interesting is how Kaepernick proceeds with his cause. Activists, especially one of Kaep's notoriety never settle and continue to fight the perceived injustice.

If he settles and disappears from the spotlight, a lot of people are going to question how much of his stand was about money rather than the cause.

At the same time people need to realize a settlement doesn't mean anything either way. It doesn't mean the NFL was actually guilty (as much as we'd all love it), nor does it mean the NFL had dirt on Kaep. Big corporations/entities sometimes will just straight up pay people to go away because they'd rather deal with the quick fix than have a bunch of dirty laundry aired in the courtroom.

On the plus side, if Kaep did really get that much moolah for his troubles...good for him. Though i wish he would have dragged the shield through the mud.

 

[Blitzkrug]

Thank the heavens this is finally over......

He wanted more than 20 million to play in the AAF.... what a joke.

This was largely attributed to the fact Kaepernick was approached early in the league's creation process. He likely didn't know what contracts looked like

 

[danishh]

If the NFL did nothing wrong, there is no requirement for a settlement.

By settling, the NFL has admitted to the world that their owners have been blackballing Kaep for his political beliefs. This is not only morally wrong, but illegal and unconstitutional. The public is entitled to know the terms of this settlement and full transparency and an explanation on the crimes committed by the NFL and its criminal owners.

 

[KDOTO]

Man if the guys who don't believe the owner colluded, then I don't know what to tell you. Might not be a brash you don't sign him type of wording but come on these guys are 70 old white men with more money then we can ever dream of.

Most have never feared what other thought, most have never seen so many black men at one time in one spot. I'm pretty sure most look at others as if they were in a secondary class in society. So yeah if you think they didn't talk to each other then your in La LA land.

It's like how Hollywood is being exposed now with the me2 thing. NFL knew it, owners knew it and goodell knew it. Just like producer, directors knew it.

They knew that if they were expose to inquisition they would be opening pandoras box. So I'm not surprise they settle and close that door right quick. You might think 80 mill is alot but to nfl and owners it's nothing to what could of been exposed during discovery and investigation. I'm wiling to bet these owners golf, dine and talk business more then we could imagine and im pretty sure some damning conversation had happened between these owners. It sucks we may never find out how far the rabbit hole runs.

 

[YEM]

I'm disappointed we now won't learn some of the wacky stuff that would have surfaced during discovery. Bummer. I gotta believe this settlement was made, at this crucial point, only to avoid that, and for no reason related to the merits.

 

[Channelcat]

This is so sickening. Kaepernick was and still is a huge piece of garbage in my opinion.

 

[GKJ]

What's going to be interesting is how Kaepernick proceeds with his cause. Activists, especially one of Kaep's notoriety never settle and continue to fight the perceived injustice.

If he settles and disappears from the spotlight, a lot of people are going to question how much of his stand was about money rather than the cause.

At the same time people need to realize a settlement doesn't mean anything either way. It doesn't mean the NFL was actually guilty (as much as we'd all love it), nor does it mean the NFL had dirt on Kaep. Big corporations/entities sometimes will just straight up pay people to go away because they'd rather deal with the quick fix than have a bunch of dirty laundry aired in the courtroom.

On the plus side, if Kaep did really get that much moolah for his troubles...good for him. Though i wish he would have dragged the shield through the mud.

It already is questioned. He did that Nike ad which was shown for like a week never to be seen again.

 

[Voight]

At the very least they definitely thought they could have been guilty of that, collusion, among other things, and if they were, then who knows where that leads. This throws out all the insinuations that Kaepernick couldn’t get a job because he was bad at football or had outrageous contract demands if they just up and handed him more than the contract he would’ve signed with anyone would’ve paid him.

And then if you’re a team like Saints or Eagles or a team that plausibly didn’t feel a need to persue him, what is this fight worth to you? What’s the fight worth to the Ravens who had, as they felt, 2 quarterbacks, winning a game 47-3 because the Bills started Nathan Peterman. Paying 1/32 of the settlement is already more than they should have to.

Teams just didn't want the media circus. His skill didn't justify such. If Rodgers or Wilson speaks out the same issues, their teams will deal with the blow back and the platoon of media wanting to speak with them every day. cap just wasn't good enough to warrant that.

This is a sell out move by him IMO, I feel like his core supporters wouldn't be that happy because they'll never know if the NFL actually colluded or what went on. Seems like he took an easy way out and did for the money when he made it look like he wanted to make a bigger issue of injustice and didn't care if he got paid to play football or not.

This was largely attributed to the fact Kaepernick was approached early in the league's creation process. He likely didn't know what contracts looked like

That makes it even worse. What expansion football league is going to be paying millions?

 

[Voight]

If the NFL did nothing wrong, there is no requirement for a settlement.

By settling, the NFL has admitted to the world that their owners have been blackballing Kaep for his political beliefs. This is not only morally wrong, but illegal and unconstitutional. The public is entitled to know the terms of this settlement and full transparency and an explanation on the crimes committed by the NFL and its criminal owners.

No it doesn't.

Either side could have made an offer to settle. Its entirely possible Kapernicks lawyers knew they'd be in for a tough case, didn't have any unbeatable evidence and as a result told the NFL they'd take a big cheque in exchange for dropping everything. NFL says yes because it clears out the bad press and negative headlines; people can finally focus on football only instead of this charade. If Kapernick and his lawyers had strong evidence of collusion they would not of settled.

NFL hates when their name is crapped on (which is why they ignored the CTE problem until a legend in Seau died as a result) so for them its easier to pay him, admit 0 wrongdoing and continue on with everything else.

 

[GKJ]

The NFL being scared of bad press is like a person being afraid that they're going to get hit by a bus while crossing the street.

 

[SouthGeorge]

So he was mad he was only going to receive 1/3rd of his contract. Decided to stick it to the league and kneel to mess their money up. Pretends to be an activist and act like this is all about something bigger. Instead of proving that and sticking it to the league, takes a settlement for about the same amount he never got from his big contract. He played people like a fiddle.

 

[MAHJ71]

I can't stand the NFL.

I can't stand Kapernick.

With that said, I refuse to believe this is the NFL "losing" or "admitting guilt" .. simple economics to me says that this was the NFL being afraid of more bad press and having deep enough pockets to just make it all go away. Nothing more, nothing less.

Personally, it's a win for me if I can just stop hearing about it.

 

[TheMoreYouKnow]

Kaepernick found that he plays the role of political activist/symbol better than that of quarterback..and he made the most of it.

 

[Troy McClure]

Kaepernick found that he plays the role of political activist/symbol better than that of quarterback..and he made the most of it.

He also won this fight.