I recently got into a short discussion with a cashier at the supermarket checkout. Being chatty I found out she was 20 something, married, childless, and trying to work herself through junior college to improve her life. Since the store was celebrating the NFL playoffs with “Jersey Day” for their workers, we got into a discussion of football.
She told me “I don’t watch anymore because of the kneeling for the anthem.” Internally I blew a gasket, because the issue that the kneelers were trying to highlight – the fact that our society’s institutionalized racism means young men of color get killed in police altercations for existing while not being white – needs as much discussion as possible. But I held my tongue and wished her a nice day
What she said made me think of Colin Kaepernick the 31 year old quarterback who started the anthem kneeling in 2016, now banished from the NFL for openly having a peacefully displayed opinion about racism in America. Conservatives re-framed the issue as respect for military, but even so, the flag is not synonymous with the military and their job is to protect the shining ethos (which includes free speech and the right to say “This is wrong!”) that the flag symbolizes.
For decades 75% of NFL rosters have been comprised of African American males who largely come from this nations poorer areas, but the league is controlled by white men in their 60’s and 70’s. There are two principal owners in the NFL who are not white, but no African American owners. The owners are disproportionately huge Republican contributors. It’s a given that the owners’ outlooks are the key reason why 75% of head coaches are white. With non-guaranteed contracts, a 100% injury rate and the color dynamic, the NFL resembles a modern day plantation, but with better wages.
I got to thinking about how the current Super Bowl Teams – the New England Patriots and the Los Angeles Rams – would fare if their respective quarterbacks got injured. Would they be appreciably better with Colin Kaepernick, of African-American ancestry, than with the number 2’s they currently employed? The Patriot’s backup, Bryan Hoyer, defines a mediocre, albeit lucrative, career. His QB rating never climbed higher than 59 ( the wonky QB rating tops out at 158.3) and he’s slower than molasses. In four years seasons, the Rams backup has thrown a total of 53 passes and rushed for negative 12 yards. He’s such a nonentity you don’t care that I haven’t given you his name.
While Kaepernick ‘s QB Rating was woeful during the two years that the team around him was dreck, he had three years in the 60’s and 70’s before that. 50 Percent of starters in 2018 had a QBR less than 60. Also Kaepernick is a dual threat, running for over 2300 yards, 13 rushing TD’s and a 6.1 yard per rush average. Both of the best teams in football would be better with Kaepernick as their number two. That’s not supposition, that’s just fact. NFL fans are idiotically crazy over the sport, but oddly silent about this tidbit. How would a team like the Jacksonville Jaguars have fared if they employed Kaepernick as their starter instead of a guy with a mid-forties QB rating?
It’s almost a certainty that if a white guy had Kaepernick’s stats some team would be employing him, because Kaepernick could help them win. What does this say about the NFL and the tenor of our society? Like most fans, I did not turn off the TV this weekend in protest. Perhaps that’s all the answer that the powers that control the league need.