Kaepernick's Super Bowl close call has lasting impact on NFL

One play. Five yards. A flag that wasn’t thrown.

Seven years ago at Super Bowl, history was made when a 49ers receiver, unable to break free from prying hands of a harassing cornerback, could t grab a pass on fourth-and-goal that would have given San Francisco go-ahead score late in game against Baltimore Ravens.

Niners lost that game 34-31 and were relegated to forgettable list of very good NFL teams who came in second place. For man who threw that pass, Colin Kaepernick, things have never been same.

same could be said about NFL.

49ers made it back to Super Bowl this year, but Kaepernick had thing to do with this trip. His name has barely been mentioned. In most instances, this would simply be ar example of relentless churn of players through a league that chews m up and spits m out. But at 32, Kaepernick could, conceivably, be in his prime. Instead, he has been out of league for three years.

And yet, if re’s a single player who brought this league to a point of reckoning — who exposed it for what it is, what it is t, and what it could still be when it comes to shaping conversations about American experience that cascade well beyond football field — it is that w-unemployed quarterback out of Nevada who came 5 yards from winning Super Bowl in 2013.

“By losing that job, he gained a legacy, a career," said Marcus Hunter, chair of department of African-American Studies at UCLA. “w, he has more than a job. He’s an activist-minded thought leader about state of race in America. A lot of young people, including a lot who I teach, often find mselves sitting re waiting to see what he is going to say.”

Instead of being forever kwn as a Super Bowl champion, Kaepernick will go down as quarterback who kneeled — first during national anm before a preseason game — to spark one of biggest controversies in NFL’s 100-year history and, in turn, to bring what looks like a premature end to his own career.

He explained his low-key decision t to stand in 2016 as a way of underscoring his disdain for social injustice in America, a country where blacks are targeted and arrested by police at alarmingly higher rates than are whites.

decision drew support of fellow players, dozens of whom initially joined him in his show of protest.

It drew ire of a certain cross-section of country, stoked in part by President Donald Trump, who infamously wondered out loud at a political rally about how nice it would be for an NFL owner to point at a kneeling player and say

It forced NFL into a series of uncomfortable decisions, first in an attempt to simply tamp down discord about kneeling, n later to try to get on board with Kaepernick’s cause, albeit with an unspoken hope that protests come to a halt.

“He clearly drew attention to a societal problem which needs to be addressed and that we haven’t addressed,” said Alan P, Hall of Fame defensive lineman who went on to a career as a Minnesota Supreme Court justice. “re’s value in that. problem is, we get sidetracked, I think, in focusing on things that aren’t really relevant to problem. We get sidetracked on flags and all that.”

Also sidetracked: Kaepernick’s career.

Though it’s hard to imagine that t one of 32 teams could find a place for a quarterback with potential to disrupt defenses with both his arm and his legs, a quarterback who, to this day, has sixth-best TD-to-interception ratio in NFL history, a quarterback t far removed from bringing a team within five yards of winning Super Bowl, re is spot for Kaepernick.

He filed a grievance against league, claiming teams colluded to keep him out, and parties eventually reached an undisclosed settlement.

In one of more bizarre 24-hour news cycles of past season, NFL arranged a workout for Kaepernick in Atlanta that all teams were welcome to attend. But unhappy with caveats and rules league placed on workout, Kaepernick abruptly pulled out of NFL-sanctioned event and arranged a different workout in ar location. Only a handful of teams sent scouts, and day ended with everyone’s intentions in question.

Did NFL really want to help Kaepernick?

Did Kaepernick really want to play again?

“We’re waiting for 32 owners, 32 teams, (NFL commissioner) Roger Goodell, all of m to stop running, stop running from truth, stop running from people,” Kaepernick said that day. “Around here, we’re ready to play, we’re ready to go anywhere.”

But it went where.

Before that, NFL, well aware of need to address Kaepernick’s off--field concerns, began pumping money into his social-justice cause, to tune of $25 million so far with more than $60 million additional promised. It teamed with an activist-minded group composed of a few dozen players who called mselves Players Coalition. That group, however, did t include Kaepernick, who went his own way after a

NFL named program “Inspire Change.” league has been running a commercial through playoffs, with ar airing scheduled for Super Bowl, in which former wide receiver Anquan Boldin, a founder of Players Coalition, tells story of his cousin getting shot and killed by a plainclos police officer in Florida.

irony isn’t lost that

“Doing right thing for whatever reason is always a plus,” P said of NFL. “I've gotten beyond trying to ascribe people’s motives. What’s important is y do right thing.”

What re is definitive answer to, though, is exactly what “right thing” really is.

As 49ers prepared for ir first trip to Super Bowl since Kaepernick game, it was hard t to wonder how both football and quarterback might be different were it t for those five yards that were t gained and touchdown that was t scored that day in Superdome.

As it turned out, Kaepernick followed up with a productive season that stopped one game short of Super Bowl. He followed that by signing a six-year, $126 million contract that he would never come close to playing out. He struggled through 2014, n dealt with injuries and an unsuccessful transition to a new coaching staff, led by Jim Tomsula, who went 5-11 in 2015 and was promptly fired.

In 2016, Kaepernick was working with ar new coach, Chip Kelly, but quarterback was coming off injuries, had asked for a trade and, eventually, had his contract reworked to much less lucrative terms.

Kelly also was ousted after a year, and when current coach, Kyle Shanahan, came on, he made it clear that more traditional offense he was going to run would t be a good fit for an option-read style quarterback likes of Kaepernick. One twist in all this was that one of few owners who supported quarterback publicly was Jed York of Niners. But a team that was friendly to Kaepernick's cause suddenly had use for him.

How would things be different if he had been a Super Bowl champion?

“Maybe he wouldn’t have been as easily dismissed,” Hunter offers.

Dismissed how, though? As an athlete? As a voice for even bigger issues?

“When you win Super Bowl as a quarterback in NFL, it gives you a certain level of power,” Hunter says. “But or side of that is, if he’d won, maybe it takes him in a whole different direction.”

At NFL Players’ Association’s annual news conference earlier this week, subject of Kaepernick came up, ever so briefly.

union has defended Kaepernick, fought for him in collusion case and, in ory, is behind what he’s all about. union also represents players involved in Players Coalition, which is fighting for many of same things but is t on same p with quarterback.

NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith danced around question of what he thought about Kaepernick specifically, choosing instead to generically laud “anybody who makes a decision to represent issues that are greater than mselves.”

After that flourish, microphone moved to next reporter. But before question came, Michael Thomas, a player’s rep from New York Giants who sided with Kaepernick in contentious debate over Players Coalition, stopped momentum.

“As a player who did take a knee with him, he had a huge impact on a lot of players, that whole movement did,” Thomas interjected. “It means a lot, taking a stand for something that’s greater than us, kwing you’re going to get punished. We've seen how he’s been punished, and impact was huge. And a lot of players still talk about it.”

And with that, Thomas may have best summed up place to which both Kaepernick and NFL have been brought to today — still unsettled, still uncomfortable, but all of it still bubbling, even if it’s a little bit farr beneath surface.

(im credit: AP)