While delivering the eulogy at the funeral for George Floyd, the Rev. Al Sharpton took the time to address the NFL and its treatment of former player Colin Kaepernick.
Sharpton’s message was a direct response to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell’s recent admission that the NFL was “wrong” to discourage players who peacefully protested police brutality and social injustice against Black people.
Goodell represented the executives who cut a deal in August 2019 with Jay-Z and the hip-hop mogul’s company, Roc Nation. Under the deal, Roc Nation became the NFL’s live music entertainment strategist, co-producing the 2019 Super Bowl halftime show. At the time of the deal announcement, neither side spoke publicly about Kaepernick.
Kaepernick was blackballed by NFL teams after he kneeled in silent protest against police brutality. Kaepernick lost his job as an NFL quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers and he has not played an NFL game since Jan. 1, 2017. No other team has picked him up.
Kaepernick began his protests by sitting on the bench while the national anthem was played before a preseason game in 2016. Eventually, he started kneeling, NBC Sports reported.
Sharpton called for the NFL to give Kaepernick and give him his job back.
“It’s nice to see some people change their minds,” Sharpton said to the hundreds of mourners. “The head of the NFL said, ‘Yeah, maybe we was wrong. Football players — maybe they did have the right to peacefully protest.’ Well don’t apologize. Give Colin Kaepernick a job back.”
The words drew a standing ovation from some in attendance at the eulogy at Houston Memorial Gardens.
“Don’t come with some empty apology, take a man’s livelihood,” Sharpton continued. “Strip a man down of his talents and four years later when the whole world is marching, all of the sudden you go and do a FaceTime talking about you sorry. Minimizing the value of our lives.
“You sorry, then repay the damage you did to the career you stood down. Because when Colin took a knee, he took it for the families in this building. And we don’t want an apology. We want him repaired.”
During his final season with the 49ers, Kaepernick completed 59.2 percent of his passes for 2,241 yards with 16 touchdowns and four interceptions in 12 appearances. He also rushed for 468 yards and two touchdowns on 6.8 yards per carry, Yahoo Sports reported.
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In May, former NFL executive Joe Lockhart said that teams had declined to sign Kaepernick because he was deemed “controversial.”
In addition to Sharpton, others have called in recent days for the NFL to apologize to Kaepernick, 32, and rehire him.
So far, according to ProFootballTalk, there have been no solid moves toward a potential Kaepernick return.
“I still don’t think (the NFL has) gotten it right,” said Malcolm Jenkins, the New Orleans Saints safety and a co-founder of the Players Coalition, in a CBS interview. “Until they apologize, specifically, to Colin Kaepernick, or assign him to a team, I don’t think that they will end up on the right side of history. At the end of the day, they’ve listened to their players, they’ve donated money, they’ve created an Inspire Change platform. They’ve tried to do things up to this point. But it’s been one player in particular that they have ignored and not acknowledged and that’s Colin Kaepernick.”
