Scott Ostler, a sports columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, believes the Raiders – or more specifically, Jon Gruden – is mulling the idea of signing Colin Kaepernick.
Considering Derek Carr’s recent injury history, it makes sense that Gruden will want the best backup quarterback he can find.
Maybe that’s Kaepernick. Maybe it isn’t.
As for the element of the protests, nothing the league has encountered (ever?) has been more divisive than the Kaepernick-initiated national anthem protests.
Signing Kaepernick would place the Raiders at ground zero of the controversy.
Ostler called Jack Del Rio “a protest hater” and said Mark Davis was “not a big fan” of the protests – which would be in line with about every owner in the league.
It’s worth noting that neither Del Rio or Davis tried to stop the players from protesting in Washington, but would Davis sign off on the whirlwind of attention Kaepernick would bring with him to Oakland?
Ostler says he would.
As for Gruden, if the Raiders were to sign Kaepernick, it would speak for the power he holds within the organization – which shouldn’t come as a surprise after be handed a $100 million contract.
So where do you stand… all things considered, should the Raiders sign Kaepernick to backup Carr?
POLL: Should the @RAIDERS sign Colin Kaepernick to backup Derek Carr?
— Raiders Beat (@RaidersBeat) January 21, 2018
twitter: @raidersbeat
No! Marshawn is distracting enough. Time to make headlines by winning games.
Don’t need anymore distractions!
Be shocked if that happened or Lynch returning. True, he is better than some back-ups in the league. But when you are a silver spoon kid who just wants some attention because he is out of the spotlight and disrespects our country to get that attention. THAT’S WHAT YOU GET. Maybe he can play ball in another country. What has he done for his fellow man prior to taking a knee. NOTHING. The last thing a new coach needs is distractions.
I never understood when the media and fans who obviously listen to them talk about distractions on a team consider neither are in the locker room.
I never had any issue with his protest in the beginning, and still don’t today. He has the constitutional right to call attention to the fact that people of color aren’t always treated equally by law enforcement. If you don’t think there’s an ounce of truth in that, then you’re either ill informed or simply delusional. That has been his position all along. It was others that twisted this protest by the players into something it wasn’t. The protest wasn’t about the flag, or the military, or any of the other interpretations the brain dead among us claim. You can complain he took advantage of his platform during your entertainment, but that’s an issue between Kap and his employer. Most, if not all, of ownership only cares about the bottom line. The NFL, in partnership with the media and others, helped to twist this into something it wasn’t because it wouldn’t go away. Also, the owners certainly didn’t want to set a precedent going forward for other high profile employees airing their own grievances on their national stage. The fact that so many more employees joined in the protest alarmed an ownership bent in their ways of maintaining the status quo for their cash cow. This is, at it’s core, a simple labor law issue between the NFL and the NFLPA. You, as individuals, have no vote in any of this beyond your wallet. If this federally protected business clique resorts to collusion to blackball a player because he took advantage of his platform to initiate a groundswell of protest that hurt the bottom line, they leave themselves open to a lawsuit, which is now Kap’s to pursue. Should he decide not to further hurt his chances at regaining entry into the realm of the cash cow by dropping this suit, he loses face in most eyes that probably never understood his protest from the beginning. I seriously doubt the NFLPA wants to join in this legal fray, unless a large contingent of protesting players insist upon it, so if a half measure is deemed by all involved as a solution, one simple measure to undertake would be for the league to keep the teams in the locker room during the anthem.
I wouldn’t be all that surprised to see Kap join the Raiders for the right price, should Gruden believe he could be salvaged. Kap definitely has talent beyond what passes for some still starting QBs in this league, let alone the backups that are somehow still employed. Davis should be an easy sell on it from Gruden, as he may not want to antagonize other owners still hell bent in their postering, but willing to appease others open to any solution that doesn’t hurt them. He understands his product, understands the history, as well as the legacy, and the “maverick” nature underlying all of the Raiders’ appeal. He may never stand the test of time to become an icon like his Dad was, but it seems to me he surely feels the lure of what was an undeniable mystique and longs to recapture it. Kap may become part of Gruden’s plan, but I’d be more interested in Eric Reid and Carlos Hyde.