The Tampa Bay Buccaneers will be one of the teams in attendance for free agent quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s workout in Atlanta Saturday.
The Bucs will send a scout to Colin Kaepernick's workout in Atlanta. Bruce Arians said he believes he can play again in this league "in the right system." But also has concerns… pic.twitter.com/gbp6uAgMUi
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers don’t travel to Atlanta until next week to take on the Falcons, but, apparently, the team will have at least one representative there this weekend.
Free agent quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who has been out of the league since the 2016 season, is set to hold a workout for NFL teams in Atlanta, a workout schedule by the NFL, itself.
While Kaepernick and his agent didn’t originally receive the list of teams who would be attending, we now know of at least 11 that will be present, including the Buccaneers.
Would Arians’ offense be the right system for Kap? He’s a big mobile quarterback, but, he’s been out of the league for three years and wasn’t exactly the most accurate quarterback.
Still, it’s good for the Bucs to see what’s out there given the uncertainty surrounding Jameis Winston’s future.
So, it should come as no surprise that the team is planning to send a representative to free-agent quarterback Colin Kaepernick’s workout, according to ESPN’s Brady Henderson.
The Seahawks will have a representative at Colin Kaepernick’s workout, a source tells me.
It’s also not a surprise because the league has made it clear they are pushing for each team to have someone present at the workout, even though scheduling it on a Saturday with short notice made it unlikely that top tier officials (like head coaches and general managers) will be in attendance.
Kaepernick has not played in the NFL since 2016, when first he sat, then he kneeled, during the national anthem to protest police brutality and other social justice issues as they related to race in America.
The Seahawks were the last team to even host him on a workout, which happened back in 2017. At the time, coach Pete Carroll said they felt Kaepernick deserved a chance to start in the NFL, and since that wouldn’t happen in Seattle they decided not to bring him in.
Seattle is certainly not among the most quarterback-needy teams in the league, with Russell Wilson’s health among the best in the league and quality backup Geno Smith on call if needed.
However, the team’s connection to Kaepernick in the past makes it at least noteworthy that they’ll be in attendance, even if a partnership between the two sides seems unlikely, barring some kind of injury to Wilson or Smith.
“We’re trying to get ready for the Eagles. That’s where my focus is.”
New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick has just one thing on his mind. And it’s clearly not Colin Kaepernick.
The NFL announced the Patriots will be one of the team’s attending the free agent quarterback’s workout in Atlanta on Saturday. Belichick has his eyes set on the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday.
“I don’t really have any comment on that,” Belichick said. “We’re trying to get ready for the Eagles. That’s where my focus is.”
Belichick did not appear the slightest bit intrigued about how Kaepernick, who hasn’t played in the NFL since 2016, will look either.
“I’m really focused on trying to beat the Eagles,” Belichick said. “That intrigues me a lot right there, is trying to get our team as well prepared as possible to play a good football team that’s playing very well that, obviously we didn’t do very well against the last time we played them in a competitive situation. So, that’s really what I’m focused the most on.”
Belichick did not get into who the Patriots will be sending to Atlanta either. Earlier this week, he said Kaepernick’s workout was a question for Nick Caserio, the Patriots Director of Player Personnel.
“Like I said, I’m really focused on the Eagle game,” Belichick said. “We have a personnel department. Those are the kind of things they do.”
The Patriots (8-1) will travel to Lincoln Financial Field to face the Philadelphia Eagles (5-4) on Sunday.
The Miami Dolphins will be one of at least 11 NFL teams to have a representative present at QB Colin Kaepernick’s scheduled workout.
Free agent quarterback Colin Kaepernick will hold a workout this weekend for NFL teams — the latest development in Kaepernick’s quest to return to professional football after years of what could easily be described as exile. Kaepernick was, of course, the one who begun the movement of professional athletes kneeling for the national anthem to raise awareness of police brutality and racial inequalities in America — a movement that has since inspired numerous athletes to follow suit. And while safety Eric Reid, WR Kenny Stills and others have had no problem finding work since they begun kneeling, Kaepernick has remained on the fringe of football.
Perhaps this will change that. Former Cleveland Browns head coach Hue Jackson has been asked by the NFL to run the workout for Kaepernick — and as many as eleven NFL franchises have confirmed they will be in attendance, including the Miami Dolphins.
Dolphins HC Brian Flores says the Dolphins will send someone to Colin Kaepernick's workout on Saturday. Here's everything he had to say about Kaepernick on Wednesday. pic.twitter.com/cDpYbuMKeG
Doing due diligence on all players, as Flores worded it, is a good habit for all NFL teams to get into. To operate as a closed minded organization or not explore all opportunities to get better as a team is only doing yourself a disservice. And so the Dolphins should be commended for their awareness to the need to get better and their willingness to explore all options to do so.
Of all the teams scheduled to be in attendance, there’s little doubt the Dolphins are the most quarterback hungry team of all of them. According to ESPN’s Adam Schefter, the 11 teams to have committed to tomorrow’s workout include Miami, Arizona, Atlanta, Cleveland Denver, Detroit, New England, both the Jets and Giants, Tampa Bay and Washington.
What impact the workout will have on any team’s inclination to take the plunge and sign Kaepernick to a contract is still yet to be determined, but the fact that the NFL is positioning team representatives to get in front of Kaepernick and assess his fitness and football shape is the biggest sign yet that it may perhaps be time for a return to the league.
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NFL commissioner Roger Goodell made a lame public appearance on Thursday in which it was made clear right off the bat that he wouldn’t be talking about the biggest news of the week – Colin Kaepernick’s workout this Saturday.
He did, however, have time to bash the media, which is just rich considering Goodell didn’t have the guts to talk about a guy who has been blackballed from the league for the last three years simply for kneeling during the national anthem in order to bring awareness to racism and social justice.
Goodell made an appearance Thursday at the Paley Center for Media’s International Council Summit where he talked with CBS’ James Brown, who was moderating the event.
Brown, according to Deadline, made it clear at the beginning that they wouldn’t be talking about Kaepernick, though Brown couldn’t even use his name, saying:
“I know there’s some pretty salient news, some important news that’s breaking in the world of the NFL,” Brown said, without naming Kaepernick. “Roger and I are going to stick to the topic here: ‘100 Seasons and Counting,’” the official name of the session. “It would take us all day to deal with what the breaking news is,” Brown said. “We’ll deal with that at the appropriate time and we only have 25 minutes.”
What a pile of complete and utter nonsense that was by Brown.
First, you can’t even say Kaepernick’s name? Like, what would happen if you did? Would Goodell get up and run away screaming with his hands over his ears?
Second, it wouldn’t take you all day to address the situation. It would likely take a few minutes as Goodell would tow some soulless line about a workout that has been a total mess since we all, including Kaepernick, found out about it earlier in the week.
Third, nobody cares about the “100 Seasons and Counting” blah fest. Talk about Kaepernick for a few of those boring 25 minutes.
But no, instead Goodell, who once said he’s “available to the media almost every day of my job,” continued to show that he is absolutely awful at handling any difficult situation. Goodell is making $31 million this year and he doesn’t even have the courage to talk about a man who has been doing all he can to try to get back in the league in which he once came so close to winning a Super Bowl?
How pathetic.
This scripted and safe appearance then took an even more embarrassing turn when this happened:
Brown read from an index card. “I’m very personally interested in this next topic, the evolution of sportswriters and journalism,” Brown said. “I really want to hear your answer to this one.” Goodell interjected with a chuckle, “I don’t know what’s coming.” Brown, nodding to the highly scripted nature of the session, advised, “You wrote it!”
So there was Goodell trying to play the “everyman” role and get a chuckle out of the crowd with the whole “Oh boy, where are we going with this wild (it wasn’t wild) topic!?” when in fact he knew exactly where it was going, as Brown broke down the third wall and let everyone in on this sham of an interview.
Gross.
Goodell then did use some of the precious 25 minutes to sound off on the media, saying:
“There’s so much out there, so many quote-unquote ‘journalists.’ I think it’s changed dramatically,” he said. “There’s no longer a focus on doing credible pieces that stand the test of time, that are sourced properly and backed up. It’s who gets there first. Who gets it out first, and it doesn’t matter if it’s right. Just get it out.”
Goodell didn’t mention any journalists or outlets by name. “That’s probably unpopular with a lot of people here, but I believe that,” he added. The new approaches are “difficult to manage at times, because you spend a lot of time trying to clean up things that, if they had just called, if we had just had the opportunity to give a different perspective, maybe they’d consider that. But there’s so much out there that they’ve got to go fast. Speed. You no longer have a deadline. It’s now. Somebody could be out there tweeting this right now. It’s the way of the world. You can’t fight it. You just have to learn how to manage it.”
Wow, how brave of the commish to attack journalists while not having the testicular fortitude to talk openly about the Kaepernick situation, a situation that has been the topic of discussion this week because of all the silly twists and turns it’s taken. The NFL has basically acted like a real-life version of that gif of the guy who’s carrying armfuls of stuff out to his car and then slips and spills it all everywhere.
Goodell has screwed up a lot of things during his stint as commissioner, and he showed his true colors again on Thursday. He’s deeply afraid of addressing any tough subject with any type of honesty so he just hides behind the protective shield, which this time was provided by Brown.
This whole appearance was embarrassing not only for the league, but for all the fans of the league who deserve better from a guy with so much power who obviously doesn’t care about anything besides the bottom line and making sure he doesn’t say anything of real value.
Goodell gonna Goodell.
Thursday’s biggest winner: Carmelo Anthony!
Wendell Cruz-USA TODAY Sports
Melo is back! ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported Thursday night that the future Hall of Famer will be joining the Portland Trail Blazers on a non-guaranteed deal and he’ll join the team on a road trip on Saturday. Melo has been out of the league since being released by the Rockets early last season and it felt like we might never see him in the NBA again. But now he’s back and fans are pumped.
Quick hits: Jeopardy! showdown… Kyle Busch’s quick thinking pays off… Von Miller’s odd take on Drew Lock… And more!
– Jeopardy legend James Holzhauer squared off against Emma Boettcher, the woman who ended his run a few months ago, in the first round of the Tournament of Champions finale on Thursday night… and here’s how it went.
Bill Belichick and Nick Caserio intend to send a talent evaluator.
The New England Patriots will attend the much-publicized workout for quarterback Colin Kaepernick on Saturday in Atlanta, the NFL announced on Thursday. The Patriots are among a list of 11 teams who will have a representative present.
Former NFL head coach Hue Jackson will lead the drills, with assistantence from fellow former NFL coach Joe Philbin. The league has not made the workout public to the media, but it intends to send a video of the workout and Kaepernick’s interview to all NFL teams.
Kaepernick has been out of the NFL since 2016 when he played for the San Francisco 49ers. He and former 49ers teammate Eric Reid filed a collusion grievance through the NFLPA with accusations that the league blackballed him after he protested police brutality by kneeling during the national anthem.
The NFL proposed this meeting between Kaepernick and NFL teams on Tuesday, and gave him just hours to respond, per ESPN. Kaepernick’s team requested the workout get moved to Tuesday or a later date, which would make it more accessible to NFL personnel evaluators, who are usually on the road on Saturdays, but the league wouldn’t adjust their proposal.
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Reid said Wednesday. “At this point, it feels like a PR stunt.”
But the rumblings were always vague enough to leave some wiggle room — it didn’t mean the front office was going to physically send someone to the workout.
On Thursday, the NFL provided a list of 11 teams that have committed to sending someone to view the workout — the Bengals aren’t among those.
Some of the usual suspects (like the New England Patriots) are on there. But it was made clear all 32 teams would get tape from the workout and interview, so the Bengals might choose to simply lean on that, barring a change in the coming days.
Interestingly, former Bengals coach Hue Jackson has been announced as running the workout.
“The NFL asked me to do it. I’m excited about doing it for Colin and the league. As far as I know right now, Colin is still attending,” Jackson said, according to ESPN.
A report has said the Bengals aren’t likely to sign Kaepernick, but if nothing comes of it, the development has made for some interesting conversation in the wake of a new coaching staff benching Andy Dalton.
Nate Davis believes the Broncos are “highly unlikely” to sign free agent quarterback Colin Kaepernick.
After news broke that the NFL will hold a private workout and interview for free agent quarterback Colin Kaepernick, USA TODAY’s Nate Davis ranked each team’s likeliness to sign the QB. The Denver Broncos came in at No. 22, under the “highly unlikely” category.
Here is Davis’ commentary with the Broncos’ ranking:
The possibility basically hinges on GM John Elway’s level of desperation to take another crack at solving a problem that’s existed since Peyton Manning retired. Of course, Elway, who once nearly acquired Kaepernick in a trade, hasn’t handled this topic so gracefully over the years.
It’s true that Elway hasn’t appeared to be too keen on Kaepernick since he was spurned by the QB in 2016, stating last summer that Kaepernick “had his chance” to join the team and turned it down. It’s also true that Kaepernick’s camp hasn’t been very graceful, either.
Kaepernick’s lawyer, Mark Geragos, said last year that Elway is “apparently suffering from some real brain trauma,” which wasn’t a very wise remark to make given that Elway is one of the candidates to sign his client.
The Chicago Bears and Carolina Panthers are among the teams Davis considers most likely to sign Kaepernick. He considers the Washington Redskins the least likely. View the complete rankings here.
