Proving once again that the l-words liberalism and logic don't go together with left-stream "journalism," The Sporting News' David Steele raves about San Francisco 49ers' owner Jed York as the one voice of reason among NFL leaders on Colin Kaepernick and the protesters. Just one little problem here: York's team is the club that kind of cut Kaepernick and ended his pro career.
NFL owners met earlier this week to discuss a whole host of things, including why the sky is falling on this self-destructive association of professional football franchises and national anthem protesters. To Steele, though, York stands as an outlier in the crowd:
He sounded like a voice of reason, possibly the voice of reason at a volatile time in NFL history.
If more of the lords of football thought as he has and approached the players’ stances as he did, the meeting this week never would have been necessary.
What was necessary, as it turns out, was York's perspective.
It's worth reminding all that York and his team carry the least stain from the blackballing of Kaep,
Steele writes it was York who dealt with Kaepernick's protests "admirably, taking time to understand," ... "supporting his gesture and his cause and his right to act as he did, defending him, overseeing the team and locker-room culture that never became what outsiders disingenuously claimed it would be." And this season, in "St. Colin's absence," it is York "standing behind his players as several continue to kneel, still the exception in an NFL full of teams trying to finesse options like linking arms and avoiding the national anthem. It's York who wasn't fazed when the president and vice president targeted his team specifically in Indianapolis two weekends ago by orchestrating a walkout."
Steele says York is the man of wisdom who, amidst the league's free-fall, other owners should look to. After all, it was York who "laid out a smart, fair, progressive blueprint and declared certain principles that seemed to have avoided the loudest critics of Kaepernick, the players and the conflicted owners." York told fellow owners if they don't care about the causes that make the players tick, then they should be asking "what are we about?"
Steele reminds his readers that "York, the owner of the last team Kaepernick played for, gets it."
York gets it. What a guy! Not.
No one should have to remind Steele it was York's team that patted Kaepernick on the back as he walked out the door and into free agency oblivion. His team gave up on Kap and let him go, choosing to go with a new quarterback. Here's what happened last spring when free agency was arriving in NFL world:
San Francisco General Manager John Lynch told SiriusXM radio that the team was planning to release Kaepernick if he had not opted out.
Hard to believe, but this is lost on Steele, so busy gushing over the visionary Jed York. It's lost on York, too.
Steele blathers on about how York sounds like the "anti-Jerry Jones and the anti-Roger Goodell":
"We need to take the message away from, 'Colin Kaepernick took a knee and that’s disrespectful to the flag,'" York said Tuesday in some of the more pointed remarks of a 20-minute session. "Now our players are protesting to get awareness. That's why they protested. They have awareness — when the president is tweeting about you, when you have the vice-president making comments, that's awareness."
Wonderful about the awareness, Jed York. Sorry about the declining ticket sales and TV ratings tank though. You now have one less player "protesting to get awareness" because you -- with his mutual consent -- sent him packing to "Never Kaepernick" limbo. That's the place where no one will go in search of a quarterback. You are also the answer to the trivia question, "Who was the last NFL owner to employ Colin Kaepernick"? As the NFL falls apart, keep talking your progressive game. You, too, David Steele.
