The Colin Kaepernick saga took another surprising twist last weekend, when Kaepernick opted not to participate in an NFL-sanctioned workout in Atlanta at the last minute, and instead staged his own workout at a high school, which was open to the media.
When the workout, which was set to be held at the Atlanta Falcons’ training facility and run by former head coach Hue Jackson, was announced last week, Kaepernick tweeted that he was looking forward to meeting with the various team officials in attendance – but Kaepernick’s camp did not agree to the NFL’s terms of the event. According to Jackson, who appeared on First Take on Friday, he was informed just 10 minutes before the workout was supposed to begin that Kaepernick would not be participating. Jackson said that he spoke to Kaepernick’s agent on Friday, who gave him every indication the previous day that the QB would be working out.
ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith has come under fire for his reactions to Kaepernick’s decision to shirk the NFL, from current and former NFL players, along with co-host Max Kellerman. Earlier this week, Smith said that Kaepernick’s actions proved that he “doesn’t want to play, he wants to be a martyr.” On Thursday, Terrell Owens called out Smith on First Take, saying that Kellerman – who has argued that Kapernick was right to not give the NFL control over his workout – “seemed blacker” than Smith.
On Friday’s episode, Smith clarified some of his earlier comments on the Kaepernick situation, and argued that the timing of Kaepernick’s change of plans indicated that he had been orchestrating the event all along.
“This is where I’m coming from. Somebody’s going to have to explain to me how you [Hue Jackson] just told me that you were on the phone with the representatives for Colin Kaepernick as of Friday, and yet some how, some way, this high school that you went two an hour and 20 minutes away, 51 miles away, was just impromptu.
I don’t know if you know anything about public high schools…. but let me tell you something about a public high school. You’ve got to get permission to use those facilities. You know anybody working on Saturday morning? I don’t.
…. Which means that ultimately, at the time that you were talking to the rep that was giving you every indication that you needed to be [at the Falcons’ facility] because ‘we’re coming,’ OK, that an alternative plan was being put in play.
And why? We see the Colin Kaepernick jerseys out there. So those people just showed up wearing that jersey? No organization whatsoever, huh? ‘I’m with Kaep.’ That’s just an accident? Or the others with t-shirts that said ‘I know my rights.’ That was an accident? That wasn’t planned? That wasn’t orchestrated?
Let’s understand something here. At the end of the day, Colin Kaepernick may indeed want to play football, and I understand that people took issue with my point ‘he don’t wanna play, he wants to be a martyr.’
I meant the martyr part. But I wasn’t literal about saying he doesn’t want to play. What I was trying to state was this: You have a history with the National Football League. A history that obviously is not fair. They have blackballed him. He has been mistreated. It has been unfair. This man deserves to be in the league. He did not violate any laws, he did not violate any bylaws. He should have never been blackballed from the NFL.”
Smith said that Kaepernick’s camp reached out to him when the quarterback was trying to make it back to the NFL, and expressed that Kaepernick simply wanted to play and was willing to put his history with the NFL behind him. For Smith, his actions over the weekend proved otherwise.
“What happened was, he had the [second] workout, and then after the workout, he antagonizes the very commissioner who helped put this together, told him to ‘stop running,’ showed up with a Kunta Kinte shirt on…. I’m saying as a black person, to know that you’re going to do that… There is no black person with sense that thinks that’s going to help them get a job!”
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