Latest / The Right Time with Bomani Jones / How the NFL crushed Colin Kaepernick’s protest | Bomani Jones & Howard Bryant

Transcript

How the NFL crushed Colin Kaepernick’s protest | Bomani Jones & Howard Bryant · The Right Time with Bomani Jones

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the right time. A wave original.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: My name is Bomani Jones. Thanks for listening wherever you
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: get your podcast. Thanks for watching us on YouTube. Subscribe, like,
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: rate us, review us, give us five stars. You only
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: give us four stars. I'm inclined to believe you are
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: a hater. This is our third episode in our series
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: looking back on 10 years since Colin Kaepernick sat by
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: the water cooler during the national anthem. Like sometimes we
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: forget that that's exactly how it went. But that was
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: the thing. So we have talked already to Charles McDonald
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: about Kaepernick, the player. We talked with Jason Goff about
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: the year 2016. And then the next stage of this process,
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: 27 to 2019, we will talk to our good buddy,
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: the author of this here book that remains on my
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: desk for every time that he comes on, Kings and Pawns.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: Check it out. Still available in stores. Is it Howard Bryant?
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Is the soft kind out yet? Next year. Next year, okay.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: So then you'll be able to put it places and
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: bend that bitch up. You know what I'm saying? It
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: ain't just going to be a concussive situation.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: I'll be watching people. I'm like, man, y'all treat books badly.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: Y'all, I am so kindled out just to save the space. Really? Yeah.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: I need to start doing the thing where instead of
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: buying on the Kindle, I rent on the Kindle and
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: then buy the ones that I really want to keep.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: I went backwards.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: I started buying books, hardcover books. I started to buy
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: everything again. Removable media. I'm tired of everybody having my password.
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: I'm tired of the fact that I can't get rid
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: of my Yahoo ID because all my movies and whatnot
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: on Apple are tied to it. My books are tied
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: to it. I'm like, yeah. I buy my movies now.
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: I bought a DVD player. I bought a Blu-ray player.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: I've gone back to the future.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: No, I'm here for physical media. I'm just not here
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: for looking around all these books. That's the thing. When
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: it's time for me to travel, I'll knock out two, three,
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: four books. For real. I'm also all about Captain Carry On.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: So anyway, we will get back to all of those things.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: But first, I broke this up time-wise to start this
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: at 2017 because I think it's interesting that Like with golf,
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: I talked about stuff like, you know, do you remember
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: where you were when you heard this happen, right? And
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: when you first got the statement from Kaepernick, which I
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: think was important because what differentiates Kaepernick from just about
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: everybody was the clear articulation of what it was that
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: he was protesting with no punches pulled, where you had
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: guys like Marshawn Lynch, for example, who in 2017 comes
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: around as a guy who does not take a knee.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: He just sits by the water cooler, but he never
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: answered a question about it. And now Marshawn Lynch, of
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: all people, has all the money coming in from all
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: of the places, right? But to me, and you tell
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: me if I'm wrong here, we got through the 2016 season,
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: 2017 comes, and the first thing that we start with is, hey,
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: nobody's giving this guy a job, right? Like after a
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: season where he demonstrated, if nothing else, that he was
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: a capable NFL quarterback. Not one person, not one team
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: was like, hey, why don't we bring that guy in?
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: In a sport that is quarterback deprived. Yes.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: I mean, that to me was the interesting thing because
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: what I remember most about that time period, if we're
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: talking 2017.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: The first thing was the minute the season was over,
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: it was done, right?
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: I think it was January.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: They immediately released him and said that they released him
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: early to give him a chance to go find a market.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: There was no market.
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: Then things began to coalesce around secondary narratives, which was, well,
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: he was never a starter anyway. And then suddenly, the
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: pile on that he was not a good player and
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: that this should not be a surprise that he doesn't
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: have a job because he's not a good player. That,
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: to me, was one of the big things because you
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: could see the industry was coalescing around something. And when
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: that happens.
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: I'm not all conspiracy theory on it, but there's absolutely
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: a conspiracy going on here. It was like the league
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: was not going to sign him. And then when you
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: start having owners talk about how they couldn't anger their
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: fan bases, you knew that this conversation about Kaepernick was
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: taking place at a much higher level than football operations.
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: This was taking place at a league level, at an
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: ownership level.
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: And.
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: That was happening at the exact same time that you
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: have an inauguration. Donald Trump's now the president. And on
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: top of that, you still have him not speaking. So
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: there's obviously a strategy taking place both on his side
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: and on the league side, and then obviously with what's
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: happening nationally, that is creating this sort of perfect storm
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: for what's about to happen, which is the clear articulation
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: by the time you get to training camp and the
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: draft and everything else, that he's not going to have
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: a job.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Like, I think it is an important distinction between
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: 2016 and 2017 that, and, you know, now that we're
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: 10 years removed from that election, there will be young
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: people who will never believe this, but like, we didn't
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: think Trump was going to win. Like, it was the
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: first legitimate upset in a presidential election since the year 1948. Right.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: Where it's just like, wait a minute, what we thought
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: we thought at this point with the technology and the
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: polling and everything else, we got a pretty good idea
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: how these things are going to go in going into it.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: Like even the black dude, we knew he was going
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: to win both times going in that Trump was a
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: massive upset. So we had everything that happened with Colin
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: in 2016. But the backdrop was not. And now Trump
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: is emerging. Right. That didn't happen. Once you got to 2017,
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: the backdrop on everything was Trump. And you had a
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: non insignificant number of people who looked at the situation
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: was like, OK, well, look, Trump's the president now. Now
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: everything is going to be different, which I admit that
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: I didn't really think. Right. Like I had always felt
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: like this game is set up to a degree where
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: no one person. It's designed to prevent seismic change. The
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: point is to induce some level of gradual change. And
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: what did change, though, very quickly, I don't even know
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: if it really changed, but the backdrop of the country
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: felt totally different. And then you're right. It was suddenly
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: we're going to let Colin get out here so he
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: can hurry up and he can find a job. And
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: then nobody wanted to give him this job. And then
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: it felt in a way, because I'm not conspiratorial too
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: much either. But do you remember when the game decided
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: to destroy Public Enemy? Mm-hmm. Right? After, oh yeah, with
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: Professor Griff? Yeah, but it was a gradual process. But
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: it is the one like actual factual like conspiracy I
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: feel like actually took place. Now, Professor Griff got out
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: here wild. I believe the quote was that the Jews
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: are responsible for 70% of the wickedness of the world.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: I don't know how you calculate this number. I love
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: the 70% number. Yeah, he basically said Jews are like water. Like,
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know how he determined that 70%
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: was it. But Chuck had to figure out how to
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: handle that. Did not go so well. Fire Professor Griff,
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: everything else. But what I remember is as it went,
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: when you got to like 93, 94 and gangster rap
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: had come out. And P.E. had decided to take a
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: stance that was critical of that. If you go back
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: and read the reviews of the music at our message album,
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: which is actually not bad, you go back and read
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: the reviews of that. It was savage and it was
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: unyielding and it was across the board that it just
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: seemed like whether it was the village voice or whether
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: it was the source, they were all just shitting on
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: it like, nope. We're getting this out of here. This
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: isn't we're not doing this thing anymore. And the head
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: of the snake is going to wind up being taken out.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: And you just like I tell you, go back and
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: read it. You're like, wow, that all feels like really extreme.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: And with Colin, it was one thing that maybe you
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: had some people try to make the argument that, you know,
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: he wasn't good enough to play. But it went so
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: far where you have people making the argument that, well,
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: you know, the problem is nobody really runs the read
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: option anymore. People run the read option to this day, right?
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: Like people were saying things that were just actually factually
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: incorrect when it seemed very obvious. Like you say, in
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: a league where there aren't enough good quarterbacks to fill
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: out the teams, let alone three quarterbacks on every team, right?
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: A quarterback that had been to a Super Bowl, all
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: of these things. Nope. nowhere to be found on an
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: NFL roster. Nowhere. And in fact, we didn't talk enough
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: about the fact that Kyle Shanahan, you know, a guy
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: that could do the things Kyle could do would probably
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: be pretty helpful in the offense that he had. Nope.
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: Not even thinking about it. They brought in Brian Hoyer.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: They brought in Brian Hoyer.
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: And let's not forget, they gave Jay Cutler, Miami gave
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: Jay Cutler, what, $ 10 million?
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: And he played five games the year before. And so,
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: I mean, it was anybody but him. Anybody but Colin.
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: And that was very clear. And I think that with
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: the other piece of that too, that was really interesting.
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: And when you think about the 10 years of it,
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: the public enemy comp is a good one because at
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: some point there remind you who you work for. And
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: it doesn't make a difference. And a lot of times
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: you'll see it, obviously you'll see it in the black industries,
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: a lot more, it'll be a lot more pronounced because
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: they're going to need the black talent to coalesce around
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: this to protect itself because now what you're really talking
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: about is you've got a fracture here that you can't
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: just walk away from. Are you going to stick to
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: what is taking place or are you going to protect
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: your money? Because when you have these fractures, the industry,
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: the institution is going to rely on you to protect it. Otherwise,
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: you'll be the one out of a job. We saw
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: that with, especially with the black athletes, we saw the
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: black athletes immediately coalesce around the narrative that Colin had
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: cost himself. Remember Michael Vick? Of all people, Michael Vick
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: was taking the high moral ground. You know, maybe he
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: should get a haircut.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: Remember all that?
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: Maybe he should just cut his hair and he should
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: just fall in line. And then there was Ray Lewis,
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: of all people, who had so much to say about
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: Colin Kaepernick And then the league let him say it.
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: And so when that was happening, it was very obvious
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: to me at least, and obviously to a lot of
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: other people, it wasn't rocket science, that if you were
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: going to stay in this game, part of you staying
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: in the game, part of your loyalty was to criticize Kaepernick,
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: was to really sort of circle around him and isolate him.
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: And I don't even know sometimes if people know that
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: they're doing this, if it's just the momentum that takes place.
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: And certainly from a media standpoint, it takes place from
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: a sourcing standpoint. Where are you getting your information? Is
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: your information original or is your information simply repeating the
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: people who want Colin Kaepernick to be out of a job?
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: And I always wonder about this, Bo, and I always
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: wondered about your thoughts about this. I don't think we've
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: ever talked about this, is the thought that I've always
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: had is how much do you think that those guys
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: knew that this was going to be permanent. You know,
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: the Michael Vicks and the Ray Lewis's and everybody else
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: who had something to say. And, and let's not forget,
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: you know, Dak Prescott and all the other players, everybody,
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: you know, the whole power of the NFL and of
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: professional sports in a lot of ways came down on
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: one guy. That's not an accident. And everyone's got to
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: take a little piece of that too. Or a big
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: piece of it. Yeah, that's where I say, for me,
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: the P.E. comp comes in. It's like, damn, it's raining
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: from everywhere. It's like the Apocalypse 91 album was the
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: 2016 season. Like, okay, we're still letting this go a
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: little bit, right? Then it was like, nah, nah, nah.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: We've had enough. And to me, in it all coming
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: down in that way, I think it leads to a
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: point that I think is very important, which is, if
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: it was just about business, then you didn't need that.
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: Because if it was about business and you're making the
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: argument that you are responding to what the fans are
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: going to do, then you don't need to sell the
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: fans on how they already feel. Right. Like they get
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: to speak on it and then it goes from there.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: The truth is people will watch this goddamn football no
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: matter what. And by the way, if you need an
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: example of that, all the people that said that they
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: would quit watching football because of Kaepernick, who went back
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: to watching football.
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: Immediately. Yeah, immediately. All in me. Right. Like people cannot
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: people cannot stop themselves from going back into watching it.
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: So when they made that argument, it was just like, no,
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: I just don't think the fans are going to show up. Right.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: It's the same argument behind the Washington commanders. We can't
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: change the name from Redskins to that because the fans
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: want it. You can't name one person. Or maybe you
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: can name one or two, but not enough that actually matter.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: The reason they stopped watching them is because they were
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: fucking sorry. It wasn't because of the name of the team.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: All those arguments came down. No, none of them.
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: And from where, though, that's the piece of it that
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: always gets me, is the way that this whole industry
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: sort of knows how to get in line. So much
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: for the independent press and the independent thought. And we
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: know everybody in the network is going to line up
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: because we know where the checks are coming from. But
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: we also know where the sentiment is going to come
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: from outside of the game, because anybody who wants to
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: get inside the game is going to have the right attitude.
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: And I think one of the things about this, when
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: we were talking about coming on this program, this show,
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: to talk about this specifically, one thing that had always
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: been hitting me for a while now was.
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: Not just about Kaepernick, not about what Colin did and
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: what Colin didn't do, and we've spent a lot of
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: time talking about that, but how well organized his opposition
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: grew over the next several years. From 2017 on, it
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: wasn't just what Colin did or what Colin didn't do.
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: It was how now the IOC is not going to
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: allow kneeling. The whole sports industry had a response to this.
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: That's really to me when I think about the legacy
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: of Colin Kaepernick. I don't really think about Kaep necessarily.
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: I think about how quickly his opposition mobilized to crush
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: protest for the next several years. And by the way,
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: that's still ongoing.
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Like they had a they had a plan to
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: crush him when it is clear that he did not
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: have a plan on this in the first place. Right.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: I do not say that as a judgment of him.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: I don't think he thought this was really going to
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: be that big of a deal. And, you know, and
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: then it mushroomed into everything that it was, but like
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: even the idea or the act of kneeling, it became
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: this very powerful statement to the point where people forget
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: that that isn't even how it began in the first place,
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: to the point where the kneeling came to then, you know,
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: We both know this. Once you put something into the world,
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: it no longer belongs to you. It becomes whatever it becomes.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: And that shit became whatever people needed it to be, right?
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: Whatever it was, it became just the act of defiance.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: And it's crazy to think that not standing up for
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: a song could be like the most defiant thing that
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: one could consider that you were doing. But it became
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: that impactful because people saw the reaction and how strong
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: it was. And also a certain measure of courage. that
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: it took for him to stand. And the reason it
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: took that courage for him to stand is that suddenly
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: everybody saw. That's right.
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: And it was also the articulation, as you said, to
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: start this. It wasn't just, he wasn't out there saying, hey,
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: you know, give peace a chance. He was like, no,
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: you are attacking Black people. You're not attacking protesters. You're not,
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: you know, you're not pro-Greenpeace. You know, we're not, We're
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: not talking about climate. We're talking specifically about Black people.
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: And that is what inflames a lot of this, or
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: if not all of it. Because one of the arguments
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: that I've always tried to make on this is that
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: if Cap was like, no, no, I'm just here for
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: world peace, man. Just the world is a messed up place. No,
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: it was the specific articulation.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: Specific.
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: No, I am here because your police are killing us.
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: that's the fight right there. That's the gasoline. That's the wick.
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: That's the kindling.
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: That's the whole thing.
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: I mean, and there's no way around that because that's
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: what inflames the anger. That's why people get so upset.
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: That's why this turned into what it turned into. And
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: especially because it was police as well. Like the articulation
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: of what Colin did, the one thing I will say
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: about whether he had a plan, whether he had a strategy,
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: whether he didn't, whatever you want to say, the one
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: thing he did say was that the articulation of why
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: he was doing it could not have been clearer.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: Right. And that is, there's nothing more powerful in those moments,
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: in those times, as clarity. And again, it was very
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: clear that the decision had been made. We're just shutting
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: this down. Yeah. Right? Like, we're not, we've decided that this,
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: of all the things that surround this league, This is
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: the thing that we're just not going for. Right.
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: Well, that's why the Ray Lewis piece was so fascinating.
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: And that was why, you know, the Michael Vick piece
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: was so fascinating because what it told me was that
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: we can handle all the stuff that you all do
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: to each other. But this guy's messing with our money.
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: And this guy is affecting us. And this guy is
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: affecting the way that, not only the way that we
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: see labor, because let's not forget, this is a labor issue.
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: There was nothing, every battle that was taking place on
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: the political front was taking place in triplicate between the
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: players association and the league in terms of power, in
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: terms of, you know, this is where this whole player empowerment,
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: athlete activism, where all this language came from. And what
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: I found most offensive about it was, It was Ray
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: Lewis's Hall of Fame speech. When he was up there
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: and they were all laughing and clapping and Ray was
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: doing his sermon. And this is all happening at a
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: time when Colin Kaepernick is out.
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: Of a job.
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: And I sat there and I'm watching that speech and
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: I'm looking at it and I'm thinking they are completely
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: comfortable with you because you reinforce what they think of
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: us you know And they'll accept, you'll pay your penalty
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: for the dog fighting and then whatever went down in
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: Atlanta with Ray Lewis and all of those things. But
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: when you show a level of intellect and you show
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: a level of history and knowledge and concern for an
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: understanding of where we are as people, as a people,
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: they destroyed you.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: And, you.
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: Know, that to me was the first thing that was
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: really the most, and the number of the players that
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: went along with it. And then of course, then, you know,
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: I don't know if we're going too quickly ahead of time,
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: but then, you know, then you immediately get into labor
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: because now you've got the Kaepernick faction on one side
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: and you've got the you know, the players coalition on
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: the other, this, you know, NFL owner led movement. Um,
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: once again, all rooted around money and very little of
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: it around principle. And then it comes down to the
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: leadership and whole thing about, okay, how do, is it
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: possible to have a movement? Can we do this? And
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: how close to the, to the breast do you want
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: to stay players? And so to me, like all of
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: this did a certain level of exposure. It exposed players,
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: It exposed the players as still just being employees. They're
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: still just little boys with big muscles who sell products.
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: And it also exposed the question of movements in general.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: Can you be.
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: Part of something like the NFL and maintain any sort
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: of independence?
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: Probably not.
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: And then, of course, the third thing is when everyone
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: was talking about empowerment, how much power do you have
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: if you lose everything by opening your mouth? Right.
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: And it also, I think, got to the power of
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: narrative in the sense that a major difference between Colin
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: Kaepernick and Michael Vick is that there is a path.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: There was a path to redemption for Vick. There was
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: a path to redemption for Ray Lewis. There was no
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: path to redemption for Kaepernick because he didn't do anything wrong.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: That's exactly right. Right, like there's nothing, like there's no
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: way for him or no realistic way. What's he saying
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: sorry for? What do I need to be redeemed for? Yeah,
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: there's no way he was gonna turn this around in
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: a way. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Yeah, the white folks
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: gonna be like, yeah, you know, I think he's learned.
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: from what happened. There was nothing to turn it around,
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: and people who feel like he did something wrong, you're
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: never going to get that out of him. Unless he
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: was going to become an entirely different person or shorten
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: the Muhammad Ali arc and progression. If Muhammad Ali endorsed
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan in 1984, but imagine if Muhammad Ali had
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: endorsed Richard Nixon in 1972. That was basically what it
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: would have taken for Kaepernick to have brought this thing
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: all the way back around. It was like, no, there
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: was nothing that had been done wrong. There was nothing
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: he could do to change those people's minds about him.
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: And I think a very important point, and we're going
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: to get to this a little bit, and you talked
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: about this also, is the fact that he didn't ask
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: for permission to do what he did, right? To make
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: the statement that he made. It was entirely him just
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: one day deciding, you know, you know what? I'm not
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: giving up my seat. I am going to stay right here. Yeah,
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: that's right. That's right.
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: And I think that, and that is the thing where,
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: what was he supposed to do in terms of.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: Forgiveness?
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: Forgiveness for what? Right.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: I mean, that is the, and every time you get
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: to this piece, when it comes to him, that's the
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: question you have to answer.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: Well, I just think he's handled it the wrong way.
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: Do you? Right.
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: Do you think he's handled it the wrong way? Um,
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: you know, all these people who would wear those t-shirts,
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: I'd be walking around the airport and you'd see all these,
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: you know, white dudes with their t-shirts, you know, stand
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: for the flag, kneel for the cross.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: Okay. All right.
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: Um, and these are the same guys who stormed the Capitol.
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: You know, I think there's another way to do it.
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: And I think to me, you know, and obviously this
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: is just my own thoughts, but That combination is what
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: killed any idea of athlete activism or player protest or
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: any of it, because those dudes did nothing. The athlete
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: response to January 6th was non-existent. And that was the
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: slap in the face to everything that they had said
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: about the players who were quiet for 60 seconds. And
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: all these dudes who were like Blue Lives Matter, the
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: policemen got killed on January 6th. And they tried to
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: say it wasn't even a riot. And the players didn't
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: say a goddamn thing.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: Nothing. Yeah. You know?
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: And that to me is, you know, there was, there
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: was one sentence that really hit me when that was
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: all happening, which was they're telling us this is theirs.
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: All of this belongs to them. It's the difference between
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: renters and owners. How are these very same people who
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: were going bananas five years ago about a CVS being
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: on fire in Baltimore saying nothing about this? And the
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: difference is that you can't have an insurrection on your
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: own property. They believe this is theirs. The CVS didn't
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: belong to the community in Ferguson or Baltimore, whichever CVS
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: we're talking about. But the Capitol... White people like, well,
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: this is ours anyway. How can we we we can't
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: we can't have a riot on our own property. And
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: the ballplayers didn't say anything. And that includes the basketball players.
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: That includes the WNBA. That includes all of them. And
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: they hadn't been heard from since.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: Well, we're coming up next. I want to talk about
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: that element and how the Trump of it all came
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: up in 2017 to help lead us to where we
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: are now. Look. If your supplement shelf needs a reset,
• 26:25
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• 27:07
  Speaker 1: we are back with Howard Bryant. So... The most 2017
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: thing to happen, I feel like maybe in all the
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: 2017 things to happen, is when Trump came out. You
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: going where I think you're going to go? When Trump
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: came out and called the football players sons of bitches. Right?
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: Wasn't that a rally? He was just up there and
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: he was like, oh yeah, fire the sons of bitches.
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: He was like in Alabama, wasn't he? In Tuscaloosa or
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: somewhere in there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He said, if the
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: guys were going to protest during the national anthem, he
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: said to fire the sons of bitches. And that was
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: the thing. That got the football players riled up. That
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: had Rex Ryan, who in 2016 was on stage at
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: a Trump rally, sitting on ESPN being like, hey, wait
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: a minute. This isn't what I signed up for. I
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: thought it was going to be this, then the third.
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: Now he's talking bad about football players. God damn, that
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: was the line for you? But that was like the
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: line for America, it felt like. That made this the
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: giant sports story. And it also led to the first time,
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: at least to me, that you saw a widespread support,
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: at least for the spirit of what Kaepernick was doing.
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: Because if somebody once told me, you have to understand
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: that the NFL Players Association is maybe the largest group
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: of black conservatives in America. That is not a revolutionary
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: bunch of dudes. That's a great line. Yeah, it's not
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: a culture that spawns a lot of individualism. It is
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: very top-down. It is very much influenced by white evangelism.
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: There are a lot of these things. And also desperation. Yes.
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: Because they don't control their money. Correct. And they know
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: that and their money isn't even guaranteed. But Trump called
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: them sons of bitches. And now next thing you know,
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: they kneel it all over the place. You got cats
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: throwing up fists. You got dudes doing all the things.
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: Why were they doing them? Ah, great question. That doesn't
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: necessarily have the clearest answer, but.
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: I actually think it does. I mean, I think it
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: has a very clear answer. I mean, because it's one
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: thing when you're attacking the players. It's another thing when
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: you're attacking the workforce.
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: Labor.
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: Jerry Jones is taking a knee with the players on
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: the sidelines. Jerry Jones, who came out and said that
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: he would release any player who protested on his team.
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: They realized that this went from a political problem to
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: a workforce problem.
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, the reason I say what they were doing
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: is not necessarily clear is, as we discussed before, everybody
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: had their own explanation. They had their own reasons. Yeah,
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: for whatever it is they were doing. That Jerry Jones
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: thing is interesting, though, because in a way that almost
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: foreshadows a lot of things in 2020— where all of
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: a sudden they looked up and they're like, shit, man,
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: these dudes are mad. We just got to get through
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: this week or two or something like that. And these
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: dudes are mad. But when Jerry Jones went out there
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: with his team and locked arms with them and took
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: a knee before the national anthem, that is one of
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: the most amazing, I don't even know what the word
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: is to use, type situations. Because Jerry, to be fair
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: to him, I always felt like Jerry was in a
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: bit of a bind. Jerry knows that he got more
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: black fans than anybody else. Jerry knows he got more
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: white fans than anybody else too, right? Jerry knows this
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: National Anthem shit is bad for business. For bad for business.
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: Jerry also knows these dudes can kind of shut this
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: whole thing down if they all decide to. And I
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: like that my players like me. Mm-hmm. What do I do?
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: And he threaded that needle so precisely in that. And
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: also perfectly. Yes, exactly.
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: Because if there's one thing like when I think about
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: black people, especially professional athletes, because you have to add
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: the money to it, like they can check in and
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: check out whenever they want.
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: Because a lot of them are really, really rich. Right.
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: I don't know how, you know, how you spend your
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: money is up to you. But how much money you
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: have is a lot of times in, you know, not
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: in dispute.
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: And so I.
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: Always refer to us in a lot of ways as
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: sort of crumbs for a starving people. All we need
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: is the gesture. And then that just calms us down.
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: Just show us that you love us. Just let us
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: know that you care about us. And Jerry, Jerry is
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: Eddie DiBartolo times 500 in terms of how he lets
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: his players. I mean, in the Cowboys doc on Netflix,
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: which I thought was very, very good, the number of players,
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: Jerry knows how to tap into his players. they love
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: jerry that's why the players association that's why they can't
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: strike because them players they love the owners more than
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: they love.
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: Each other.
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: Because of the history of it all and also because
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: they know who signs the checks and they know you
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: know once again and if how many owners do you
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: have how many bosses do you have That if something
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: goes down and you end up in the clink, you can.
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: Call him first. Right. You could call Jerry.
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: You could call Jerry. And those guys swear by him.
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: And he's the face of the league, like it or not.
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: I don't care if they haven't been to the Super
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: Bowl in 31 years. Jerry Jones and the Dallas Cowboys
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: is the NFL. And in terms of how they handle players,
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: in terms of how they operate, in terms of the aspiration,
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: all of it. And... The fact that what went down
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: when Trump did that, when he gave that speech about
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: fire the sons of bitches and the whole thing, the
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: one thing that all professional sports need to do is
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: break the union. Either physically break them or spiritually break them.
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: And the NFL Players Association has been spiritually broken since 87.
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: And they've been trying to get something back since 87
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: when 40% of the damn league crossed the picket line
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: in the first three weeks and killed the strike. And
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: superstars were the ones to cross. And why did they cross?
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: They crossed, as we did on this program, they crossed
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: because they loved their owners. 49ers weren't crossing.
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: They loved Eddie D. Right?
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: And so this was the first time where Jerry was like,
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: wait a minute. We've spent 30 years keeping these guys.
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: in the exact perfect place. Why are you gonna fire
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: them up? You actually gave them a reason to join together,
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: to be bonded. That's the biggest threat in the sport.
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: There's no bigger threat in the sport. No sport is
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: more exploitative, is more restrictive, is more owner friendly than football.
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: And you're gonna give these guys a reason to essentially
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: really be a union, to be unified, we got to
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: put this down right here, right now.
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: And while all this is happening, by the way, where's
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: Colin Kaepernick? Not playing football.
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: Not playing.
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: And by now, not really talking.
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: And not talking. And I've always felt that was the
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: biggest tactical mistake. And Colin did what Colin did because
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: Colin felt like doing whatever he felt like doing. You know,
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: it's his life. It's his decision. You know, it's his
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: strategy or lack thereof. And I never and I've told
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: him this, that I never felt letting other people define
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: you as the right call. Even if you're not a
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: great public speaker or whatever, I mean, Colin can bring
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: it when he wants to bring it.
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: And.
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: You know, but I felt like that was a huge
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: tactical error because they. got to speak for him for
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: an extended period of time. And I'm not just talking
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: about the owners, I'm talking about his ex-teammates and his
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: competitors and all the, you know, everybody's got something to
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: say about Colin.
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: And even his allies.
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: And that's what I'm saying, even his allies. Everybody is
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: speaking for him. And I don't ever think it's a
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: great policy to have the entire world speaking for you.
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: And that was the thing about that weekend as well,
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: was that in the backdrop of all of this, two
• 35:36
  Speaker 2: things are happening. One, Colin's not playing. That's the first thing.
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: And that's what this is really all about. I mean,
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: no disrespect to Eric Reid or to the McCourty's or
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: Antonio Cromartie, everybody who was in it, or the Bennetts,
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: all of them. But this was really about Kaepernick from
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: an ownership standpoint. That's the first thing. The second thing
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: that's going on during that time is that The league
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: is effectively crushing the protest by offering them money. You've
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: got Anquan Bolden out there and you've got Malcolm Jenkins
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: and you've got the McCourty's with Bob Kraft. You've got
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: them all saying, okay, we will partner with you on
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: social justice initiatives. We are essentially going to take a
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: big ass fire hose to this protest and pour water
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: on it. And we're going to co-opt it. We're going
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: to bring you in. And now you got prison reform
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: stuff going on.
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: You've got legislation.
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: You've got all of a sudden, you've got all of
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: these athletes now standing side by side at state houses
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: talking about real change.
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: Meaningful change. Meaningful change.
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: And then you had Dak Prescott out there going, well,
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: I'm all about real change, which is a shot directly
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: at Kaepernick. And that was the other narrative that we heard.
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: What was the phrase we were hearing that whole year?
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: Well, you can't just take a knee. Yeah, you can. Yeah,
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: you can.
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: Because if there's one thing that we know about this world,
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: bodies in the streets change the world. You can hit
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: like on Facebook all you want. Go hop on CNN International.
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: People are in the street. And that gets people's attention.
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: And so the idea that you couldn't just take a
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: knee was the players undermining themselves. Undermining themselves themselves. under
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: the promise that the Terry Pagoulas of the world are
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: gonna take care of you. The most paternalistic shit I'd
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: ever heard.
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: Well, also not really addressing the basic idea that got
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: us here, which is the idea that his song is
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: that holy. That's right. But you're not going to win
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: that battle, right? You weren't going to win that. Right.
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: You're not going to win it. But I do think
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: as more and more goes, it is worth it every
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: now and then, right? To bring attention back to the
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: fundamental idea of what we're talking about, which is what
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: you do when they play a song, right? But when
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: you get to 2017, and I think you mentioned this
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: a little bit, and I think this is an important
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: thing to note, is that since Colin wasn't playing... These
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: actions and things also became a bit jumbled because it
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: started to raise the question about, so how important, if
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: we started here by talking about the way that the
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: police treated black people, or just the way America treated
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: black people, now the front and center issue, rather than
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: being that, becomes, does Colin Kaepernick have a job? Should
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: Colin Kaepernick have a job? Right. Well, that's right. Now,
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: that to me, I think, is an interesting and maybe
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: underdiscussed complication of everything that we are discussing, just because
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: now we're not really like we get into this. Are
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: you doing anything about meaningful change? Dot, dot, dot and
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: everything else. But we're not really talking about the issue anymore,
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: which I think that Colin, especially through that 2016 issue.
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: did a fantastic job of bringing attention to the issue
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: beyond just attention to him. Then it's funny, then once
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: he was gone, the attention then went to him. Well,
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: that's right.
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: And I think that's exactly what complicated things because people
• 39:17
  Speaker 2: were very complicated and they were ambivalent. A lot of
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: the players weren't happy with Colin. Once it became personal,
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: when you shift away from the issues, you really did
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: have three issues.
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: Here.
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: You had one, what the police relationship with Black America was,
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: which is an ongoing 50-year, 100, 200-year.
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: Issue, which is really where all this started.
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: Then you had the secondary issue, which was the athlete's voice. Like,
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: what can they actually do and say and affect and
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: how is that relationship going to work both with their
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: employer and then also how is it going to work
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: with the public? But then you had this other thing
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: as well. And this other thing was, once again, labor.
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: You had a moment in time there where the Players
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: Association had never really thought that this was part of
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: its job, right? The Players Association job was to protect
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: the safety of the players, to protect the working conditions
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: of the players, to protect the economic situations of the players.
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: And now they're being asked to do something. So they're
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: being asked to move on the fly. And while they're
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: being asked to move on the fly, you've got these
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: rogue elements, whether it's Anquan Bolden or Malcolm Jenkins or
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: Devin McCourty, They have individual relationships with their owners, which
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: is undermining the strength of the unity of the union.
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: All of this is happening under the back, you know,
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: within the backdrop of how we actually feel about Colin.
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: Because once the issue shifts toward him not working, now
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: a lot of people are like, well, what do you expect, right?
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: Then it suddenly now it becomes a job issue, which
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: is like, well, you know, you, You mess with your employer,
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: your employer is going to mess back.
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: And then I don't.
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: Remember what year, it wasn't 2017, I think it was 2018,
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: when he actually then sued the league. And then, of course,
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: the response to them, because as you said, this is
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: a very conservative group, a group that understands where its
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: bread is buttered. How are you going to get a
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: job if you sued your employer? You're finished, right? And
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: so the lack of sympathy increased. And it was like,
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: how can we ride with you they weren't going to
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: ride with them in the first place because, you know,
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: in 2016, when they were having these meetings about, Hey,
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: what are we going to do and how are we
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: going to do this? And yeah, and we had a
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: lot of people who were really kind of excited about
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: being active. Then the question came back to, okay, well,
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: who's the leader. And when Colin didn't show, you know, that, that,
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: That was a role he was really into when he
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: was like, hey, man, everyone do what they're going to do.
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: There were a lot of people who were like, hey, man,
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: we said we were going to run up this hill
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: behind you and now you're not here. And so now
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: if it's everybody for themselves, I'm protecting my paycheck. Because
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: that's what I was saying earlier, Beau, about how the
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: most important thing of this entire 10-year anniversary of CAP,
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: what I take most from that was the chilling effect
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: was the way that everybody coalesced around making sure that
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: that none of y'all did this again. I mean, there
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: are players that we can talk about who Antonio Cromartie
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: didn't work.
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: There are a lot of players.
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: Who were like, yeah, yeah, I'm a pro athlete.
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: I can speak.
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: And in the NBA, it was a little different because
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: LeBron was giving them all cover because he was LeBron.
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: But if you don't have that sort of protection in
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: your statistics on the back of your baseball card, on
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: the back of your football card, you were very much
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: exposed to losing your livelihood. And that is the huge
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: piece of it where a lot of the more shrewd
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: players were sort of like, wait a minute, I know
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: how this is going to go.
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: And I can't afford, and it's not a bad question
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: to ask, right? I mean, it's like, it's one of
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: the things that you saw over the last couple of
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: years on college campuses is people were asking you to
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: Asking professors to sign this and sign them. People are like, no, no, no, no.
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: Because I know where this is going to go. Does
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: that make you a coward?
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: Maybe.
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: Do we need different strategies?
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: Also.
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: But does it also show the opposition, the power of
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: the opposition that you're up against?
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: Absolutely. Absolutely.
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: You're up against all of the full force of this
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: country is coming up against you. And once you sign...
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: or once you take a knee, or once you raise
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: a fist and they throw you to the side, you'll
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: get a two-day news cycle, and then everybody will go
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: back to loving the system.
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: Because the truth is, the difference between Colin and everybody
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: else in the 2017 thing, this is a very important
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: thing to note, is that the league basically gave people
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: permission to do what they were going to do after
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: the sons of bitches quote, right? That's right. After that,
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: the difference was Colin didn't ask nobody for permission. They
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: managed the protest. Right, they did. The only person... that
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: I could think of off the top of my head
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: that I feel clearly suffered some consequences based on their
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: participation in some form of protest was Marcus Peters when
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: the Chiefs got rid of him and the money that
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: he never really got. Eric Reid is a bit more
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: of a complicated case to me because, quite honestly, he
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: wasn't as good a football player as Marcus Peters was.
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: Their argument of, well, they were trying to move Reid
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: from safety to linebacker, which is never a good sign.
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: But at that point, it was kind of like, you know,
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: when they said Collin wasn't good enough to play, that
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: was ridiculous. But they started saying that about Eric Reid.
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: It was like, yeah, I can kind of see the
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: argument that you're making here. But Peters, Peters never got
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: up to the money that you normally get for the
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: production and things he did at cornerback. He could find
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: teams that were willing to take him. But not necessarily
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: teams that were willing to keep him. But the reason
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: for that is not because the league wasn't punishing people
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: as much as cats weren't trying them. Like it reminds
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: me when you get to the 2020 bubble and we
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: all talked about how corny the slogans were on the
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: back of the jerseys. And the people in the league
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: will tell you we didn't turn anything down. That's what
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: they that's what they came to us with. Like it
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: was self-regulated in that regard. What we did also get
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: was the players coalition, which I think has actually been
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: more interesting than I thought it would be at the time. Now,
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: the issues with the coalition were obvious, most notably that
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: the NFL had control of the board. any money that
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: the NFL was putting forth, the players had to match.
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: So it wasn't, you know, but I wound up, I
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: think it was Torrey Smith that I was on the
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: phone with who talked to me when it happened. He
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: was like, look, I hear everything that you're talking about.
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: But he was like, this amount of money is more
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: than they do for the salute to service, these things.
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: And he really laid out what they thought was the
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: case for a good deal that they had gotten from
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: the NFL. And I will say that if you go
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: through and look at the organizations that the Players Coalition supports,
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: It reminds me of when NBC had the Richard Pryor
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: show and they were running those episodes, but nobody at
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: NBC had actually watched them. And then they did after
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: five episodes and were like, what the fuck? Hey, man,
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: get this off the air. What are you talking about?
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: They are actually giving some money and supporting some organizations
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: that are a little bit more radical than I am
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: in some cases. Like one of those where you talk
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: about destroying the whole criminal justice and prison system and
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: everything else. And NFL money is going in that direction.
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: They killed the protests, but if one were making the
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: argument that meaningful change, quote unquote, was the thing, the
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: Players Coalition has invested in organizations who do that, but
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: you don't necessarily know about that, which shows the limitation
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: of of the idea that all there is to do
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: is to quote-unquote enact meaningful change, that there's power in
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: the words, power that one could argue Kaepernick ceded by
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: deciding that he wasn't going to talk anymore, power that
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: the players ceded by making this trade with the Players Coalition,
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: while also I think it's important to make note that
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: the coalition, I think, has done better work than any
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: of us thought that it would have going in.
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: Well, let's be very clear about this. You can't say
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: that the Players Coalition did nothing.
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: Because to extract money from those owners in the first
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: place was.
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: A real thing.
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: To be able to articulate to people who, by the way,
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: at the ballot box are giving money to ideas that
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: they reject at the ballot box.
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: is a real thing in and of itself.
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: Now, maybe that's just the cost of doing business, and
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: it's all taxed right off when you're at, you know,
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: at Terry Bakula's, you know, at his dollar amount.
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: But... Oh, Terry Bakula, who said we needed a black figurehead.
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: Who we will get to in the next episode, Jason. Mm-hmm.
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: And also, let's not forget, this was also happening at
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: the same time, where you had Bob McNair going, the
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: inmates are running the asylum.
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: The prison. The prison. The prison. The inmates are running
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: the prison. Yes. Right.
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: And so all of these things have to be put
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: into consideration, have to be taken into context. And it
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: all feels sort of quaint now because it does feel
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: like a million years ago, but it wasn't it wasn't
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: that long ago. And I think that all of this
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: is also in the backdrop of something else that we
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: that we don't talk about nearly enough anymore.
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: And that's 9-11.
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: So all of this.
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: So you've got this thing happening.
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: At the exact same time, you've got all these flags
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: and flyovers and taking place. So the NFL field is
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: its own sort of political battleground for how we view ourselves.
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: And that the players, coalition, I think, I'm not going
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: to say they get a bad rap because I feel
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: like where I am most critical of them is simply,
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: I feel like they could have gotten everything that they
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: had gotten. I think they could have gotten that and
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: 10 times more if they had stayed unified. I don't
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: think that there was anything out there that they couldn't
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: have gotten elsewhere. Do you really think that during that
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: time period, there wasn't corporate money out there for those
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: big names? They could have, but the NFL money was
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: the easiest money. You didn't have to go work that
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: hard for it. There was a leverage that the players
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: had because of what Trump had said. There was a
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: feeling at the time that this is something that we
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: should do. And so Costa doing business, and I'm sure
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: they viewed it as a win-win. The players are like, look,
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: we're getting real money here. And when you're dealing with
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: those athletes, and most people in general, money is the
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: barometer for everything. And it's the one tangible thing. They
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: handed us $ 20 million. And that's a real thing. And actually,
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: that real money helps real people. So there's no argument there.
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: To me, the issue had always been that they had
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: allowed themselves to be splintered relatively cheaply. There's a bigger
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: issue there, and that was of unity, which the Players
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: Association has very rarely had when it's come to any
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: kind of organizing since 87.
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: Now, the last thing I want to get to that
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: I actually somehow managed to lose track of, which is
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: such a huge thing that you were yourself a part of,
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: We fast forward to the year of our Lord, 2019, right?
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: And so we're looking five months or so before the
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: world shuts down. Well, we have no idea that this
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: is the direction that things are going to go in.
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: We're going to talk to Jason England about 2020 and beyond,
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: because that's when all of this, I feel like really
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: comes to a head with or without Colin. But November, 2019.
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: We've had all this discussion about Colin not having a job,
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: Colin not having a job. Colin has sued the NFL,
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: a lawsuit that would later be settled. It is my
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: understanding that Roger Goodell really, really was hoping that somebody
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: would give Colin Kaepernick a job, that that was his
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: preference for a number of reasons, that this was not
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: When you say the NFL was keeping Colin out, it
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: was not Park Avenue's idea to do this. But the
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: 32 member franchises, they were their own situation. But a
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: workout was scheduled for Colin Kaepernick for November 16th, 2019.
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: And the teams are supposed to be there. I think
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: Hugh Jackson was. was the one that they had running
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: the workout. That's right. It was supposed to be, because
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: they need somebody to do this that could be similar.
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: He's a black dude that white people seem to like.
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean? They thought they could get
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: this whole thing. He's a good soldier. He's a good
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: company man. Yep. Somebody had to do this, right? He
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: also tried to get himself some looks, right? Tried to
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: get back on. He's there. It is supposed to be
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: at the facility in Flowery Branch, the Falcons facility. One
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: Howard Bryant is in Atlanta for this. Called you that day,
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: didn't I? You did, because you were on the road.
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: I was like, where am I? Right, yeah, you were
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: trying to figure out where you were going. I'm like, look, man,
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: you're going out to the North. I don't really got no...
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: I can't really help you on that. But the thing
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: that happened was they tried to get Colin to sign
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: some crazy waiver that basically said that if you do this,
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: you can't ever sue us. And him... and a t-shirt
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: that said Kunta Kinte on it, which was quite a choice.
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: I will just throw out there.
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: It's like sort of Prince putting slave on his chief.
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, I don't know. Not that I
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: don't understand where you're coming from, my brother. I'm just
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: not sure that that is what I would have recommended
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: that you do under these circumstances. But anyway... That workout,
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: was it? That workout got canceled and then you had
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: to fly across, fly all the way over to the
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: South side to go to Charles Drew High School for
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: another workout? Like, I remember talking to you on that day,
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: but what was that day like being in the midst
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: of the store? By the way, while your employer didn't
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: even know you were there, right?
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: That was the other thing. They didn't even know I
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: was there. All of that was something. I was at
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: the Apollo Theater. First time and only time I've ever
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: been to the Apollo Theater. I was there for a
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: screening of Lynn Novick's film, College Behind Bars on the
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: Bard Prison Initiative. Lynn Novick, people don't know, is Ken Burns'
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: business partner. They did all kinds of great films together.
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: And my text messages are blowing up. There's a workout
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: for Colin Kaepernick.
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: I'm like, what?
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: And it's in Atlanta and it's in a couple of days.
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: And I'm like, so this is a real thing. So suddenly,
• 54:26
  Speaker 2: here we go. Pack up, go down to Atlanta, go
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: to Flowery Branch, sitting outside, and everybody's out there sort
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: of waiting.
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: And it was, once again, it was America for you.
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: It was the nine protesters out there honking their, showing
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: how angry they are at the un-American Colin Kaepernick. And
• 54:44
  Speaker 2: then on the other hand, there were the 18 pro-Kaepernick
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: people out there. And in between, there was all kinds
• 54:50
  Speaker 2: of noise going on. between the sides, is this actually
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: going to happen? And that was the thing. Like I
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: was in contact with both the NFL and the Kaepernick
• 55:02
  Speaker 2: team back and forth because as the hours were going on,
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: I'm like, okay, what teams are going to be here?
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: And the teams actually weren't like, the teams were not
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: committing to They weren't giving us a list of who
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: was actually going to be there. Then all of a
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: sudden the list started to trickle out. And then you
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: started to see, okay, who was actually going to be there?
• 55:23
  Speaker 2: And it turns out it was like junior members of
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: like every team because it was on a Saturday and
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: that's a scout day. And it was like, it's game
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: day the next day. And so most of the executives
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: aren't going to be there. I'm like, well, how serious
• 55:35
  Speaker 2: is this if none of the actual talent evaluators are
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: going to be there? But just the fact that it
• 55:40
  Speaker 2: was happening was electric because it seemed like maybe something
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: was going to happen. And then as we start to
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: get closer and closer to the time period that the
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: workout's going to happen, they're still negotiating the terms. And
• 55:57
  Speaker 2: I'm like, you guys still don't have terms? And so
• 56:02
  Speaker 2: now things are starting to go south. It's like, all right,
• 56:06
  Speaker 2: I think this whole thing's not going to happen. It's not,
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: you know, and everyone's standing there waiting and you're seeing
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: all the buses go in and all the cars and
• 56:13
  Speaker 2: the check-ins to see which teams are there and which
• 56:15
  Speaker 2: ones aren't. And what I found amazing about this was
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: the utter lack of trust. That this was clearly an
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: impromptu thing that somebody felt that they could jam in
• 56:33
  Speaker 2: and nobody was buying it. And that spoke to me
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: mostly to just how divided or how divisive this issue
• 56:45
  Speaker 2: had really become like this is like i i wonder
• 56:48
  Speaker 2: how history is going to treat this if history is
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: going to remember any of this at all because we
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: don't even have history anymore for the most part but
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: this is all one guy this is colin kaepernick and
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: this is now year three of this right and by
• 57:05
  Speaker 2: the time we are supposed to go i get a
• 57:09
  Speaker 2: text saying workouts off.
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: I'm like, the workout's out. Came down here for nothing.
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: And then I get another text two minutes later going,
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: Colin's holding his own workout.
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: Location TBD. Yeah, and like all the rabble-rousers have Voltroned
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: it up to figure out how to switch this. It's
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: a really impressive feat when you really stop and think
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: about it. From an organizing standpoint. Yeah, like the streets
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: coalesced and decided, now we're going to figure this out.
• 57:37
  Speaker 2: Well, that was also the cool part about it too,
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: from just a protest standpoint. And all of Collins fraternity
• 57:42
  Speaker 2: brothers showed up and that was kind of amazing to watch.
• 57:48
  Speaker 2: Because you're not just talking about football and you're not
• 57:50
  Speaker 2: talking about.
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: A football player. You were really, really.
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: Talking about the idea of power and of democracy and
• 57:59
  Speaker 2: all these big highfalutin concepts that we talk about and
• 58:01
  Speaker 2: that we take so easily. But what we're really talking
• 58:04
  Speaker 2: about is the, you know, the, ability for a person
• 58:08
  Speaker 2: to have some sort of agency over his life. And
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: that was not taking place here. It was Colin was
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: going to be finished. And this was a glimmer of
• 58:17
  Speaker 2: hope that maybe there was some resurrection here, that maybe
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: there was some way that he was going to resume
• 58:20
  Speaker 2: his career. And maybe just maybe the cooler heads were
• 58:23
  Speaker 2: going to prevail and there wasn't going to be this
• 58:26
  Speaker 2: great injustice. And then that Saturday hit and it killed
• 58:32
  Speaker 2: everything because Hugh Jackson was like, man, fuck this dude.
• 58:37
  Speaker 2: I mean, he was like, we have given everything we
• 58:41
  Speaker 2: can for this. You know, we're giving Colin an opportunity
• 58:44
  Speaker 2: and Colin essentially spit in our faces. And then Colin
• 58:48
  Speaker 2: goes and holds his own event down, down at the
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: high school. And that was interesting in of itself because
• 58:54
  Speaker 2: no one had seen him throw a football in three years.
• 58:59
  Speaker 2: And so that was sort of fascinating in of itself.
• 59:02
  Speaker 2: And so, but at the end of the day, when
• 59:04
  Speaker 2: it all came down to it, You had these warring factions.
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: you had the dueling factions of, you know, the Kaepernick
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: camp saying, none of this is real. You guys are
• 59:14
  Speaker 2: trying to railroad me. You wanted my footage. It just
• 59:16
  Speaker 2: became this negotiation. And on the NFL side, it was like,
• 59:19
  Speaker 2: this dude's not really about it. You know, he's not
• 59:23
  Speaker 2: about it. Do you really want to be a professional
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: football player?
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: And I think that- Grievance has been filed. It has
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: been settled. And one of the great mysteries that depends
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: on who you talk to is how much money do
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: we have here? How much money did he actually get? Yeah,
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: like I don't know anybody. I know people who are
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: very clear in their belief that it is up here
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: and down here. That's right. I personally have no idea,
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: but it has been settled by then. But there's animus.
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: There's still animus. And there's a lot of it. And
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: I think that to me, that was the end of
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: it all.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 2: Um, because the NFL, I mean, and when I say
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 2: the end of it all, what I'm really getting at
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: Bo is what you had said at the start of
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 2: the show, which was, there was only one way that
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 2: Colin was going to be able to escape the, the
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 2: position that he was in his stance, his feeling. And
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 2: that was to undermine it. And that the NFL was
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 2: making it very, very clear. If you want to be
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 2: a part of the National Football Association, you got to
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 2: play ball with us.
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: Right? This is on our terms. It's our league. It's ours.
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: It's not all of ours. It's ours. And we allow
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: you to play in it.
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 2: And I think that was the thing to me at
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 2: that moment that really put the question of protest into really,
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 2: really sort of clear and stark relief. are you willing
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 2: to lose everything for this? Like that was where the Colin,
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 2: I mean, if you just take all the different roads
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 2: and what do they actually lead to?
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: What they lead to is Colin Kaepernick was like, I don't.
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 2: Really want to be part of this anymore, right? While
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 2: at the same time, and it depends on who you
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 2: talk to and what your own feelings are, at the
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 2: same time, there's also this feeling that Colin never really
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 2: knew the depth of of how bad it was going
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 2: to get. Did he ever really believe that it was
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 2: going to come to this when he, when, when he
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 2: sat by that water cooler and that preseason game, did
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 2: he really believe that this was going, that this was
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 2: the beginning of the end of his professional life? And
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 2: to me, that's the, the question that sits inside of him.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean?
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 2: Um, because I don't think we'd ever really seen anything like,
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 2: like to that, to that degree. And I still, to
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 2: this day, I mean, I remember asking him, did you
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 2: know that this was going to be a possible outcome
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 2: when you started this?
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: And he said, yes. And I still don't know.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 2: How deeply he believed that because.
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: He was still a good player back then. And then
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: seven months later, it all came to a head with
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: George Floyd, which Colin wasn't involved in, but it had
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: everything to do with Colin. And the next episode, we
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: are going to talk to Jason England about what happens
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: after all of this, right? Like once it's clear, there's
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: no more Colin Kaepernick career. How does the future affect him?
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: Everything else. That is how we'll wrap this up. But
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: first that's my man, Howard Bryant. This is Kings and pawns.
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: If you turn it on the back is say extraordinary praise.
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: Cause there's an extraordinary book that got extraordinary praise. Be
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: sure to check this out. If you have not checked
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: it out already, my brother, I appreciate you. No, thank you.
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: All right. And ladies and gentlemen, thanks so much for
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: joining us here on the right time. We do this
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: during the summer every now and then. Mike McQuaid handling
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: everything behind the scenes. Thank you, sir. Hit the voicemail line, 323-596-7767. Remember,
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: follow the right time. Subscribe, like, rate us, review us.
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: Give us five stars. You only give us four stars.
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: I'm inclined to believe you are a hater. And we'll
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: talk to you guys in a couple of days. Take
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: it easy.