Los Angeles Chargers coach Jim Harbaugh is back-peddling after news broke that he had offered national anthem protester and social justice warrior Colin Kaepernick a coaching position.
Harbaugh initially told the media that he made the offer early this year.
“Yeah, we talked a little bit about it,” Harbaugh said in an interview with USA Today. “He’s considering it. He was out of the country. He said he was going to get back to me. We haven’t reconnected since then. That was early, early in the year.”
Despite the surprising discussion, though, Harbaugh is now backtracking and telling the media that Kaepernick is not going to be joining the Chargers in any capacity after all.
“I love Colin, but he’s not going to be on the coaching staff, which is set for this year. And he’s not going to be playing on the roster either,” Harbaugh now says, according to ESPN.
Of course, Harbaugh coached Kaepernick when the two were part of the San Francisco 49ers organization and was present when the team lost the Super Bowl to Baltimore in 2013.
But Harbaugh was long gone before Kaepernick suddenly became the face of anti-Americanism in 2016 when he launched the scheme of taking a knee during the playing of the national anthem to protest against America, our police, our history, our military, and our flag.
Harbaugh had added earlier this week that former Raiders owner Al Davis had convinced him that Kaepernick might have the stuff for coaching.
“Al Davis saw something in me that made him think I would be a good coach, and I see those same qualities in Colin,” Harbaugh told ESPN, “if it is something he chooses.”
Kaepernick has not played since the end of the 2016 season, when he became a free agent and rejected the 49ers’ offer to stay with the team. But he makes an annual publicity grab by claiming he is still in tip-top condition and ready to return to the NFL.
Still, he has also excoriated the league, comparing it to a “slave auction,” and insisting it does not do enough for social justice despite the millions the league has donated to causes — including his own.
In his TV series Colin In Black & White, which he also narrates, the former 49er quarterback appears in a scene where he implies that the NFL is like a slave master and talks about potential NFL players being “poked, prodded, and examined” for defects before an NFL Draft. The players at the “combine” then leave the NFL field and enter a mid-1800s slave auction where white landowners examine slaves for purchase.
In the scene, Kaepernick says this is how “they” establish a “power dynamic.” The scene closes with the NFL coach and slave auctioneer shaking hands against the backdrop of bonded slaves in an attempt to establish a generational link between the professional athlete selection process and slavery.
Coach Harbaugh’s move to offer Kaepernick a coaching job might not be a big surprise, though. He already has three other former 49ers players on his coaching staff: NaVorro Bowman, Jonathan Goodwin, and Will Tukuafu.
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