Of course it is the case that the NFL’s broadcast partners are buzzing with hot taeks on Colin Kaepernick “not showing up” for his scheduled workout on Saturday, because rights fees.
Some perspective on this …
One, no way a lawyer worth anything per hour lets a client sign this piece of paper handed to him by a potential employer.
Once the NFL set these terms for the workout to be able to take place, you could smell the rat.
This whole thing was a circus aimed at giving the NFL legal cover, which, yeah, knew that already.
That point was reinforced when you consider the veil of secrecy that the league demanded with the workout itself.
It seems logical that both sides would want the workout open to the media. Certainly for Kaepernick, who would want cameras and reporters on hand to watch him zip passes to wideouts running routes, as he expected would be the case.
But also, if you’re the NFL, wouldn’t you also want media members on the sidelines?
I mean, if the narrative is, Kaepernick is saying he’s been working out diligently for the past three years as his status hangs in the air, but we’ve never bought that, if it ends up being the case that he shows up out of shape, can’t throw the ball anymore, the rest, wouldn’t you want the visual evidence of that to be disseminated widely?
The Kaepernick camp is saying that the secrecy demanded by the NFL is itself a rat, floating the notion that you have to assume the league would do something in terms of funny business with the video from the throwing session, because why would you not assume that?
So, you have the NFL wanting Kaepernick to sign a piece of paper that it could use as protection against any future legal recourse, and the NFL wanting to control the flow of information from the workout itself.
But somehow, Kaepernick is in the wrong here, in the eyes of the league’s sycophants among its broadcast partners, whose analysts have hot taeked themselves silly about how Kaepernick must not really want to play football, and similar blather.
I’d say shame on them all, as a workaround to the stronger language that I really want to use, but then, I get it.
If you’re CBS, Fox, NBC, ESPN, you’ve got billions tied up in the NFL.
The quality of the product absolutely sucks, but millions still tune in every Sunday – and Thursday, and Monday.
God knows why, aside from old habits dying hard, but that’s another story for another day.
The broadcast partners need to keep putting the NFL over because of those billions, and so if the NFL makes it clear, pile on Kaepernick, then you pile on Kaepernick.
Which means ignoring that The Shield was trying to strong-arm Kaepernick into signing away his rights, and trying to strong-arm Kaepernick into starring in a straight-to-video “Football Follies.”
Oddly enough, where else would the NFL go if the broadcast partners put this Kaepernick story like it really is?
When you’re talking about the rights partners being CBS, Fox, NBC, ESPN, that covers everybody who could pony up the bucks necessary to land an NFL broadcast deal.
Which is to say, they don’t have to be cowards when it comes to standing up to The Shield; they just choose to be.
Shame on them all, and you know what I really mean when I say that.
Column by Chris Graham
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