A new report says that Colin Kaepernick will actually receive less than $10 million as part of his grievance settlement. Despite initial reports that the NFL had shelled out upwards of $60 million to settle his case.
Current Carolina Panthers player Eric Reid was also part of former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s grievance suit against the league and, along with the legal teams, will share in the settlement, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The confusion over the final amount as reported in the media is a result of a confidentiality agreement keeping full details out of the public eye, but many news outlets originally reported that Kaepernick was set to receive upwards to $80 million.
The Journal reports that if Kaepernick had persisted in pressing his case and won instead of settling, he would likely have set a record for the damages he could have won. He could have been awarded up to $90 million, the Journal says.
Kaepernick has received some criticism for taking the settlement and in particular for signing a confidentiality agreement which requires him to remain quiet about the whole case.
Typical of that criticism is that from former Kansas City Chiefs player Larry Johnson who slammed the former 49er for “taking money from an oppressor,” and for singing a confidentiality agreement that prevents him from talking about it.
“If your backdrop is going to be the African American civil rights presence that it brought from the ’60s and you’re going to use that for your own causes, you don’t sell out,” Johnson said in February when news of the settlement first broke.
Johnson also slammed Kaepernick’s contract with Nike saying, “You don’t turn your message into a Nike hoodie.”
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston.