Colin Kaepernick’s collusion lawsuit against the National Football League names a peculiar conspirator not named as a defendant: Donald Trump.
“The owners of Respondent NFL Teams have been quoted describing their communications with President Trump, who has been an organizing force in the collusion among team owners in their conduct towards Mr. Kaepernick and other NFL players,” the lawsuit spearheaded by attorney Mark Geragos charges. “Owners have described the Trump Administration as causing paradigm shifts in their views toward NFL players.”
The former San Francisco 49ers quarterback seeks an NFL arbitration hearing through his lawsuit filed in California state court. Should he win this case and then emerge victorious in the hearing, he could wind up earning an NFL’s starter’s salary (anywhere from a few million to $27 million) without playing a down of football in 2017.
And if the arbitrator shows him the money without Kaepernick stepping on the field, he may have the president of the United States to thank.
“On or around September 22, 2017, during a campaign rally speech in Alabama, President Donald Trump referred to NFL players that knelt during the national anthem, as sons of b****es (implying that Mr. Kaepernick was a ―son of a b****‖) and demanded that NFL teams fire these players,” the litigation filed Sunday notes. “Since then, President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence have posted Tweets and engaged in various public relations stunts designed to retaliate against Mr. Kaepernick and other players that have joined in Kaepernick’s peaceful protest.”
In all, the lawsuit mentions Trump and his administration five times and Pence once. In contrast, no NFL owner gets namedropped in the suit against NFL owners as much as the president. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell sees his name mentioned four times in the brief.
Kaepernick launched a protest against police brutality and racism during the 2016 preseason by sitting and kneeling for the national anthem. He continued the protest, which gained converts, throughout the season. He played in 11 games, winning just one and completing 59 percent of his passes.
His legal grievance describes it as “a statistical impossibility that Mr. Kaepernick has not been employed or permitted to try out for any NFL team since the initiation of his free agency period,” regarding him as the best quarterback available in free agency this offseason but bizarrely sitting out the regular season. The demand for arbitration characterizes Kaepernick as boasting “consistently exceptional career performance.”
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