Bills Should Sign Kaepernick...

[Joe Fo Sho]

Re: Bills Should Sign Kaepernick...

Hmmm...

I'm going to have to ponder this for a second.

However, I'm still perplexed as to how people who root for wife beaters, drug users, drunk drivers and occasionally even murderers completely lose their **** cuz a guy didn't stand for a song.

Yeah, I get it.

For a long time, I've been of the position that I don't care what these guys do off the field. I don't want to hear about it. I miss the days when all the stories you heard about players were just rumors and no one really knew because everyone didn't have cameras in their pockets or the cops would look the other way.

I don't care about Kaepernick kneeling during the national anthem, that's his right. Hell, I sit on my ass with a bag of chips in my hand while I watch the national anthem on TV. I just think that since he has the right to do what he did, the NFL owners should have the right to do what they want. No one should be forced into hiring him, I don't even know how you could enforce such a thing anyway.

I also don't think it's his opinion that most people disagree with, because his opinion is that there should be equal rights for everyone. That's a lot of people's opinion. They just don't like the way he went about voicing his opinion.

[Joe Fo Sho]

Re: Bills Should Sign Kaepernick...

There are also football issues to consider. Kaep is not good enough to be a starter and as a backup he can only perform in certain offenses. The book on him is that he can't read defenses very well and they had to use schemes to divide the field in half to reduce the number of options, that's been the case for his whole career. That doesn't sound like an ideal back up to me.

If he was playing like he was 4 years ago a number of teams would deal with the media distraction and potential impact on the locker room Kap absolutely brings. But as a backup that may not be a fit for your offense? Seriously how many jobs are open that sound like a fit for that? In Buffalo it would only make sense if he was better than TT which he isn't. Ideally we need our backup to be a developmental guy that could end up being our starter.

That ain't Kap. No way, no how even without the fact that he brings the circus to town with him.

But let's say there was a team that needed a backup and the offense fit Kap like a glove. If alternate candidate A is rated a 70 but isn't going to be a distraction and Kap is a 75 who would most NFL coaches take? To deny that coaches hate distractions is to deny reality.

Joe Thomas said it best a few months ago:

"Teams don't currently view him as a starting QB, and NFL teams accept ZERO distractions from their backup QBs."

It's a pretty easy concept to grasp.

[Skooby]

Re: Bills Should Sign Kaepernick...

This is completely irrelevant to the discussion.

Just because he didn't personally experience inequity doesn't mean that it doesn't exist.

He isn't the best spokesperson for this because of it & his message wasn't well received so I find it quite relative.

[JoeMama]

Re: Bills Should Sign Kaepernick...

To be clear, if Russell Wilson or Tom Brady were the ones who took a knee during the anthem, teams would still bend over backwards to sign them.

Kaep suffers from a lack of passing ability to accompany his protest, which makes for an easy hiring freeze. Very few teams are willing to sign someone who's considered a "distraction" unless there's considerable upside.

Rule no. 1 if you have celebrity status in this country. Know your audience. Kaep has to understand that the bulk of NFL fans are male, white, and conservative (likely in that order). You disrespect the flag, you're going to be in their doghouse. And teams generally don't want to piss off their fans unnecessarily because of $$$.

[Night Train]

Re: Bills Should Sign Kaepernick...

Kap isn't good. Harbaugh left 3 years ago and he fell apart.

Bills are thinking ahead with two 1st round picks in a loaded 2018 QB class. Don't blame them.

[OpIv37]

Re: Bills Should Sign Kaepernick...

To be clear, if Russell Wilson or Tom Brady were the ones who took a knee during the anthem, teams would still bend over backwards to sign them.

Kaep suffers from a lack of passing ability to accompany his protest, which makes for an easy hiring freeze. Very few teams are willing to sign someone who's considered a "distraction" unless there's considerable upside.

Rule no. 1 if you have celebrity status in this country. Know your audience. Kaep has to understand that the bulk of NFL fans are male, white, and conservative (likely in that order). You disrespect the flag, you're going to be in their doghouse. And teams generally don't want to piss off their fans unnecessarily because of $$$.

To be clear, he did something considered disrespectful during the national anthem. That's not disprecting the flag, or disrespecting the troops as some have claimed.

[JoeMama]

Re: Bills Should Sign Kaepernick...

To be clear, he did something considered disrespectful during the national anthem. That's not disprecting the flag, or disrespecting the troops as some have claimed.

No of course it's not, but I'm talking about perception from the average NFL fan's point of view.

I found Kaep's protest completely understandable and acceptable, personally. But most fans did not. Which is why signing him probably feels radioactive around NFL front offices right now.

[Guest]

Re: Bills Should Sign Kaepernick...

No of course it's not, but I'm talking about perception from the average NFL fan's point of view.

I found Kaep's protest completely understandable and acceptable, personally. But most fans did not. Which is why signing him probably feels radioactive around NFL front offices right now.

Screw "the average NFL fan's point of view" Joe.

Screw them.

Screw them in the ass.

Why should this be a race to the bottom?

I watch the NFL to deal with the pain and NOT the insane.

[Pennywise]

Re: Bills Should Sign Kaepernick...

Relax, snowflake. The only reason why I brought up the US is because our government (mostly) gives us freedom of speech. The rest of the world doesn't.

Cubans are free to hate Castro, just like Kap is free to support him.

The piece you continue to miss is that Kap is losing his career over his political views. Is that really the country you want to live in? Where someone can be denied their livelihood because they have a controversial view?

The whole reason "freedom of speech" exists on the constitutional level is so controversial views can't be immediately dismissed. Lots of good things came from ideas that were controversial or offensive at the time they were uttered.

Do you REALLY think that you don't have any views that other people would see as offensive or controversial? Do you REALLY think it's ok for a man to lose his entire livelihood cuz some Cubans in Miami don't like his T-shirt?

Once again, it comes down to people you saying "Know your place, boy!" and jumping through hoops to try to find a way to justify why that's acceptable.

Yeah, I do.

I believe in the right not to employ someone that could possibly hurt my product.

If you owned a well to do business, and I will take this to the extreme.......if somebody said America deserved what happened on 9-11, and that person was qualified to do a job within your business, would you hire that person?

If you did, you're nuts.

[OpIv37]

Re: Bills Should Sign Kaepernick...

Yeah, I do.

I believe in the right not to employ someone that could possibly hurt my product.

If you owned a well to do business, and I will take this to the extreme.......if somebody said America deserved what happened on 9-11, and that person was qualified to do a job within your business, would you hire that person?

If you did, you're nuts.

So our freedom of speech is essentially useless if controversial opinions makes one unemployable.

[Joe Fo Sho]

Re: Bills Should Sign Kaepernick...

So our freedom of speech is essentially useless if controversial opinions makes one unemployable.

Kaepernick is not unemployable. He can get any number of jobs that don't pay him $10MM per year.

[OpIv37]

Re: Bills Should Sign Kaepernick...

Kaepernick is not unemployable. He can get any number of jobs that don't pay him $10MM per year.

Oh I get it- so you can't have controversial opinions and get a good job. That's makes so much more sense...

[OpIv37]

Re: Bills Should Sign Kaepernick...

Yeah, I do.

I believe in the right not to employ someone that could possibly hurt my product.

If you owned a well to do business, and I will take this to the extreme.......if somebody said America deserved what happened on 9-11, and that person was qualified to do a job within your business, would you hire that person?

If you did, you're nuts.

Well, I guess it depends. If I was a small business with a lot of local competition- say, a bar or restaurant- I'd probably leery about hiring staff that would say controversial things about 9/11 to the customer, especially if I lived in an area that had a lot of conservatives or near a military base or something like that. If I was the manager at Wegmans, I don't think I'd care. No one in their right mind would stop shopping at Wegmans cuz one cashier said the US deserved 9/11.

Now, if Danny Wegman sent out a press release that said "The US deserved 9/11 cuz of our ****ty foreign policy. I encourage more attacks against the US until the foreign policy is changed, and it will be Wegmans corporate policy to support ISIS and similar groups until it happens," then I'd stop shopping there.

It's pretty ****ty of people to boycott a team that employs hundreds of people or a league that employs thousands because of the opinions of one guy.

[Novacane]

Re: Bills Should Sign Kaepernick...

So our freedom of speech is essentially useless if controversial opinions makes one unemployable.

Congress shall make no law ....................... abridging the freedom of speech. The government is not the one not hiring him. This has nothing to do with freedom of speech.

[OpIv37]

Re: Bills Should Sign Kaepernick...

Congress shall make no law ....................... abridging the freedom of speech. The government is not the one not hiring him. This has nothing to do with freedom of speech.

Well, in the technical government sense, no.

In the real sense, this has everything to do with truly being able to speak freely. Like I said before, the government pretty much leaves us alone when it comes to free speech. But we completely **** over each other when it comes to speech.

At least when oppressive governments crack down on speech, people know what they can and can't say without consequences. Here, there's this invisible, poorly defined, constantly shifting line that carries social consequences when it's crossed. And both the right and the left are equally bad. The left nails anyone who says something that can be interpreted as politically incorrect- racist, homophobic, sexist or whatever. The right nails anyone who says something that's offensive to Christians or mocks America or generally anything profane or sexual.

And the constitutional free speech wasn't put into place to protect benign statements. It exists to protect controversial ones. But we've taken that away from each other without the government needing to lift a finger.