Colin Kaepernick‘s agents Jeff Nalley and Jasmine Windham released a statement on Thursday and said their client not being picked up by an NFL team is truly unprecedented. They also said there have been a lot of false narratives surrounding the quarterback and the statement is to “set the record straight.”
Kaepernick hasn’t been selected by a team since he became a free agent in 2017. Before that, he began kneeling for the national anthem as a member of the San Francisco 49ers to protest racism and police brutality, which many believe has everything to do with his unemployment.
People like Donald Trump called the protests unpatriotic and disrespectful to the military, as well as the American flag. And besides Kaepernick, others like Eric Reid began kneeling, and the protests spread to other sports like baseball and women’s soccer.
Kaepernick and Reid filed a collusion suit against the NFL, which was settled earlier this year for an amount said to be less than $10 million for both of them to split.
Since then, Kaepernick has expressed interest in still playing for the league and said he’s been working out five days a week for three years in order to return. And he’s posted videos to show his weekly regimen.
Kaepernick’s current conditioning is just one of the points his agents brought up in their statement, and they’ve said after trying none of the 32 teams in the NFL have showed interest in bringing Kaepernick on.
“Not a single team has offered Colin a job since the 2016 season, in which he began his peaceful protest,” read the statement. “Not a single team has brought Colin in for a workout. Seattle [Seahawks] brought Colin in for a visit but did not work him out.”
“I’ve reached out to all 32 teams about Colin’s employment, with little to no response from teams about an opportunity for Colin,” it continued. “In 25 years, I have never seen anything like it.”
Nalley and Windham also state that despite being 32 years old, Kaepernick “Has the same skill set as many of the young mobile quarterbacks flourishing in the NFL right now.”
They also listed some of his past NFL statistics, including his appearance in the 2013 Super Bowl and two NFC Championship appearances.
“In summary, it is difficult to think of another young player in NFL history with statistics and character as impressive as Colin’s not being given an opportunity to earn a spot on an NFL roster after what he has accomplished,” the statement concluded.
