Can Kaep Still Play Ball?

   Give peace a chance, and give Kaep a chance.

  Colin Kaepernick is back in the news, Sports Illustrated carrying a story about how he still wants to play and is training and working out five to six days a week. Kaep might be 35 years old, but he still dreams like a kid. Just like a kid dreams of being in the NFL, so does Kaep.

  Truth told, though, the kid has a better chance than Kaep. Never mind that he remains the only quarterback in Division One college football history to accumulate 10,000 passing yards and 4,000 rushing yards. Never mind that led the San Francisco 49ers to the Super Bowl in just his sophmore season in the NFL. Never mind that he boasts the 33rd best passer rating in league history. 

  Never mind that his electric play once made him the face of the NFL.

  Sorry, but talent is not enough. The kids in grade school have a better chance of playing in the NFL someday. Your problem, Kaep, is that you stood up by kneeling down. You stood up for Blacks being killed in the street by police. You took a knee for the National Anthem. You said you were not going to  "show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. To me, this is bigger than football," you said.

   Don't you understand? The only time you take a knee is when you're ahead and just running out the clock.

   What were you thinking in the Sports Illustrated article? You told the magazine you still want to play ball; you still dream of going toe-to-toe with the greatest quarterbacks in the world. "I'm going to keep fighting for it because I know I can step on the field and play," you said. "Every workout, every opportunity I've had to show that, the feedback has always been positive. Everything from, 'He's still an elite player' to 'The workout was great; it was better than expected."

  The pundits and the haters had a field day with that, mocking you, saying you're basically crazy to think you're still an elite player. You had good workouts? Right.

  But, give peace a chance, give Kaep a chance. Give the oldest kid of all a break. Put him on a roster, and put him on the field and let him show whether he still has it. "I just want the opportunity to come in, show what I can do on the field," you told Sports Illustrated. "Judge me based on that, not the political bias that you have."

  Sorry, not-so-young man. You had your chance and you kneeled on it. You blew it, and we aren't going to give you another chance to prove you can still play. If we did, you might show us up. You might show us you still can play football. And that would make us look bad. Maybe you haven't noticed it, but this is the National Football League, and we have a National Conference and an American Conference. There isn't a Communist Conference and we don't have room for communists.

  Kids dream of being in the NFL. So does Kaepernick. And he isn't a Russian Communist. He was big enough to stand up for what he believed and you blackballed him and bad-mouthed him for doing that.