He told Shannon Sharpe this summer that he is absolutely not looking for 9-10 million a year which is the often quoted price tag.
Seattle Postpones Kaepernick Meeting Due to Protest
- Thread starter jose melendez
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Having the POTUS as your enemy can redound to your detriment in a lot of ways, not all of which are predictable. And most of these owners have business interests outside of football.
But I think it’s at least as much about fear of fan reaction as it is about Trump.
It would be nice if someone stood up and was a profile in courage, but that shouldn’t shift blame from fans/Trump to ownership/Goodell if it doesn’t happen.
When you say this summer do you mean the summer before the 2017 season or this summer coming up?
See: Sacramento Kings. Meanwhile Bob McNair is saying that he regrets apologizing for being a gigantic, out of touch asshole. NFL deserves what's coming to it.
What sort of plan does one need for kneeling? How is his kneeling adversely affecting the team?
It's not the kneeling itself. It's the plan of dealing with the media and how that affects the team.
I get that - but what sort of proactive plan would he need? How, specifically, does it affect the team? Be specific here.
How is he different than say, JJ Watt, who spent a good chunk of last year pushing a social issue (including interviews during games, and official nfl events)? Would they ask JJ Watt what his plan was for dealing with the media and how it affected the team?
Because raising money for hurricane relief (while he was on IR) is a bit less of a hot button issue than kneeling during the National Anthem. You're being willfully ignorant here.
I disagree. What’s the problem here? That the press will use the allotted time to discuss X instead of Y? I still haven’t seen someone make any sort of argument about how that affects play.
You think the owners only or mostly care about winning. I don’t. For instance, Woody mostly cares about the back page.
Maybe most owners do care about winning more than money and being popular. I don’t know what the evidence is to support that.
I mean, "He needs a plan to deal with the media attention" is clearly a pretext because, exactly: the time taken to discuss police violence vs. any other issue is/can be roughly the same. It's not a "how can you juggle your priorities", it's "We want to know how you will distance the team from your political views, if you choose to push them."
Anyone who doesn't concede that point is being obtuse. Of course it's the politics.
It has potential to have a downstream impact because expressing political beliefs creates the possibility of fracturing locker rooms whereas helping people recover from a hurricane probably is. Whether that is actually the case and whether it will impact play on the field, I can't say one way or the other and neither can anyone else, but comparing charitable efforts to kneeling as if they are the same is a quite poor comparison. One generates puff pieces, the other generates opinions.
Or maybe other Houston players think Watt is a gloryhound and are sick of all the attention he gets.
Dude, he lives in a rustic little cabin and chops wood in the offseason. Glory means nothing to him. How dare you.
Sure, but that has much less to do with the act of raising money than it does with the who is raising the money. I am addressing the what, not the who. Unless you think players on the Texans think that the act of raising money for hurricane victims is a shitty thing to do.
It’s really pretty simple. The problem is fan backlash. It exists in blue cities in blue states on the west coast. It exists in blue cities in blue states on the east coast. It exists in red places everywhere.
One chunk of the fan base thinks the anthem protests are disrespectful. Another chunk is message neutral — they don’t want their 3.5 hr fan experience tainted by real world problems; the whole point of this exercise is, for them, escape.
There is no significant counterweight — an appreciable portion of the fan base that both agrees with the message and wants games to be a central platform for them.
Owners are businessmen. They are not getting fired up over the substance of this. They are getting fired up because they think it’s bad for business. And they do not want their platform utilized for player specific messages.
That, I think, is the heart of it. There is a pretty easy way out here — don’t allow the teams to take the field until the anthem has played. Just like college. I’m a bit surprised they have not taken it.
One chunk of the fan base thinks the anthem protests are disrespectful. Another chunk is message neutral — they don’t want their 3.5 hr fan experience tainted by real world problems; the whole point of this exercise is, for them, escape.
There is no significant counterweight — an appreciable portion of the fan base that both agrees with the message and wants games to be a central platform for them.
Owners are businessmen. They are not getting fired up over the substance of this. They are getting fired up because they think it’s bad for business. And they do not want their platform utilized for player specific messages.
That, I think, is the heart of it. There is a pretty easy way out here — don’t allow the teams to take the field until the anthem has played. Just like college. I’m a bit surprised they have not taken it.
This seems like a shift. We’re discussing media backlash and locker room rifts. The what or the why or the who is irrelevant; only the potential for distraction and discord or actual distraction and discord matter.
And certainly there’s a fear of alienating a portion of your fan base, but there’s also the potential to win new fans. Hell, I’d buy a Kaepernick jersey if he signed somewhere else.
There is no shift from me, you were bringing the who into it, which I was trying to get away from with my last post. The what, in my opinion, is the crux of this unless you think all off field actions are created equal. I do not believe that. Hence why I objected to the characterization of the Watt and Kaepernick stuff above.
The issue with winning a new portion of fans is that I would posit they are more likely to no longer be fans once Kaepernick is no longer with the franchise. And the fans you alienate are likely to be lifelong fans. If you're looking this from a lifetime value perspective, which most of the owners likely are, the economics are likely in favor of keeping the current fan base over gaining these new fans.
Goodell had a golden opportunity to do this when Trump waded into the controversy with his “S.O.B.” remarks. The majority of fans would have understood, and the minority that didn’t would’ve forgotten about the issue after a few weeks, because there wouldn’t have been new images each week of players taking a knee.
I kind of think Trump is the reason why the NFL hasn't done this. I mean, he relishes the issue and will do what he has to do to keep it in the news. He even sent Pence to an NFL game to stage a walkout. It's what he does. If the NFL prohibits its players from taking the field during the anthem, Trump will attack them for it.
That said...
These fans, if there are enough of them, would be fine with havimg the players stay off the field and would prefer that POTUS leave them to their apolitical fanhood.
They didn't come out until like 2009 or something. The same year that the Armed Forces started to pay NFL teams to "honor" veterans before the games and things like that.
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The Seattle Seahawks' defensive line, including all of the starters, sat during the national anthem throughout the regular season. Last year was also the first time the Seahawks had missed the playoffs since 2011.
The Players Coalition agrees that Kaepernick and Reid are out of work for being "outspoken," yet Kaepernick has little to no voice in the coalition, and Eric Reid left the group. The Players Coalition has spoken about "moving on" from national anthem protests," and working with the NFL on the reasons driving players' actions of social protest. Yet the group has figureheads like Anquan Boldin and Malcolm Jenkins, while the majority of the members(those that aren't pro-bowlers, super bowl champs, hoousehold names, etc.) remain anonymous for fear of backlash from the NFL. I think we already knew if Von Miller chose to continue sitting during the national anthem, the Denver Broncos would have put a La-Z-Boy recliner on the 50-yard-line.
The Players Coalition agrees that Kaepernick and Reid are out of work for being "outspoken," yet Kaepernick has little to no voice in the coalition, and Eric Reid left the group. The Players Coalition has spoken about "moving on" from national anthem protests," and working with the NFL on the reasons driving players' actions of social protest. Yet the group has figureheads like Anquan Boldin and Malcolm Jenkins, while the majority of the members(those that aren't pro-bowlers, super bowl champs, hoousehold names, etc.) remain anonymous for fear of backlash from the NFL. I think we already knew if Von Miller chose to continue sitting during the national anthem, the Denver Broncos would have put a La-Z-Boy recliner on the 50-yard-line.
CORRECTION: I think Von Miller only knelt during the national anthem, he didn't sit. The Denver Broncos would have lululemon yoga mats as a sponsor.
I'm a bit out of the loop on this, so sorry if it's a dumb question: didn't several players kneel during the anthem? Why is Kaepernick the only one who isn't being signed?
Eric Reid is also not signed... And he could start for just about every team out there. He and Kaepernick were the two outspoken 49ers. Reid was the one who stood up for him and then joined him.
Many players knelt, but they gave up and stopped (I am almost certain). Also, Kaepernick was so outspoken about it, very few players have actually said much of anything of substance on the issue.
It's worth remembering that Kaepernick originally sat, but started to kneel after discussions with a veteran Green Beret who felt that kneeling was a good middle ground to both get Kap's message across while also respecting the flag. To me, that's what makes this situation so fucked. He doesn't deserve to be black balled.
https://www.military.com/undertheradar/2016/09/kaepernick-meets-veteran-nate-boyer-kneels-anthem