Alan Truex: Kaepernick payoff is tied to his NFL future

Collusion is in the air.  From the Kremlin to the White House to the NFL.  And on, perhaps, to Major League Baseball. More on that next week.  Why can’t people stay in their lane? Why do they disregard the spirit of the law so they can bend the edges to their own selfish, greedy purposes?  Aren’t we a better species than that?

And when the law is broken, why the coverup even after the punishment has been issued?

Colin Kaepernick was barred from playing pro football in 2017-2018 for one reason.  And everybody who watches the sport knows it. His protest involving the national anthem was toxic to the National Football League.  It chipped off at least 5% of the national television audience, cost the league at least half a billion dollars.

Essentially, each owner was writing off a $100 million tax deduction for cost of Kaepernick, a slightly-below-average starting quarterback.

Every kneel-down could mean a million white men click away.  Hey, I can watch college ball without the flag being insulted.

I don’t think the NFL colluded against Kaepernick because of racism.  Team owners for the most part are decent, charitable men who have nothing against biracial ones like Kaepernick.  He can protest all he wants about cops shooting young men in cold blood. Just don’t cost us a billion dollars while you do it.

So what did the settlement cost them?  NFL reporters are strung across $9 million to $80 million.  But It could be way over.

At some point we’ll know most of the story. We’ve already heard a mouthful from Kaepernick’s media-friendly attorney, Mark Geragos.   A day after the announcement of a confidential settlement, Geragos was on CNN predicting his client is no more than two weeks away from being hired by an NFL team.  He even dropped names: Bob Kraft, New England Patriots, Carolina Panthers.

The Panthers seem feasible, since they recently gave a massive contract to a very average safety, Eric Reid, who happens to be another of Geragos’ clients.  A former backup in San Francisco, Reid took the knee and sued the NFL and lived to play in it. The Panthers, with acute secondary needs, agreed to extend him three years, for $10 million guaranteed, with a dozen urine tests tossed in for free.

As for the credibility of Geragos, be reminded that lawyers are not judged by the company they keep.

Because he’s so adept at appropriating free media to benefit himself and his client (not necessarily in that order), Geragos is beloved by celebrities, be they guilty as hell or not.  His clients have included Michael Jackson, Scott Peterson, Susan McDougal and better and worse. Yes it makes my skin crawl, but hey, that’s his job.  

You can be sure Kaepernick’s settlement includes, first, reimbursement of salary lost for the two years in which he was not permitted to practice his profession.  At least $30 million there.

And he must be compensated for salary lost if no NFL team finds a place for him on its roster for who knows how long.  That’s why Geragos’ loose-lips prediction is extremely significant.

I’ve never heard of someone working for a company three years after suing it.  I speak from some experience, having protested Hearst Corporation requiring me to work 55-hour weeks without comp time or overtime pay or a Christmas bonus.  Yes I’m aware many other Americans are required to work more hours than that, but I can only sue the lawbreakers I work for.

After a federal judge (Republican, by the way) ruled against Hearst in its plea for summary judgment, my lawyer gained a settlement we liked, but 13 months later I was no longer working for Hearst, that historic titan of yellow journalism.  

I was so afraid of breaching confidentiality that I didn’t reveal numbers to my siblings or children or – most of all—ex-wives.  

Still, numbers got out (from The New York Times: $300,000).  I expect a leak in the Kaepernick case, especially with a lawyer as loquacious as his.  Geragos may not be charging appearance fees for TV spots, but he’s getting a healthy cut of the settled amount, maybe even an unhealthy one.  The NFL is paying for that, not to mention its own legal fees.

Nobody gives up freedom of speech without receiving what’s politely termed hush money.  Lawbreaking corporations pay dearly to avoid admitting they broke the law. “So Colin and I can’t go on Sixty Minutes and discuss the evidence we have?  We can never write about it? . . . OK, that will be another 10 mil.”

Assuming Geragos is telling the truth – and I’m not vouching – how much more money will the NFL have to pay if no team can find a job for Kaepernick?

There are sound reasons to avoid him– the owners’ legal argument all along.  It was nonsense when they first made it, with the athlete a prime 29. But now he’s 31, old for running the ball when you’re trying – or not – to throw it.  Also, he’s rusty. And he’s the most polarizing figure in sports and the mother of distraction. Still, we all know he’s better than Brock Osweiler and Tom Savage.

So, Larry Johnson, former NFL player, current social justice advocate, calls Kaepernick “a sell-out” for letting his silence be bought.    

Easy for him to say.  But can he be so sure Kappy would have prevailed with the arbitrator?  What happens to his cause if it reaches a Supreme Court that’s allied with a President who proclaimed from his bully pulpit that every anthem protestor is a “son of a bitch”?

Of course, this fight should not have gone as far as it did.  The story would be less historic, less dramatic, if Kaepernick had been dealing with Adam Silver and Mark Get-Your-Hands-Off-Me Cuban instead of pompous Roger Goodell and single-minded profiteer Jerry Jones.   

In the NBA, the white men who sit in their offices meet amicably with the black ones who work with their hands.  Those two sides would have conceived of a way for Kaepernick to deliver his message of social justice to just as many people, and without provoking so much outrage.

There might have been minute-long pregame video of dark-skinned people being injured or killed by trigger-happy cops.  Images that might have disturbed viewers. That’s how civil rights are gained. Make the majority uncomfortable with how it treats minorities.   

But there would never be anything that makes soldiers feel their bravery is unappreciated.  Which by the way was not Kaepernick’s intent.

I was not shocked, shocked to learn that some NFL owners want NBA commissioner Adam Silver to switch leagues.  Shouldn’t the owners demand accountability from the empty suit at the top?