Barber: Celebrating the NFL-Colin Kaepernick settlement

There will not be a collision over collusion.

The National Football League and Colin Kaepernick had been playing a high-stakes game of chicken since October of 2017, when the former quarterback sued the league’s 32 teams for colluding against him. And the NFL just swerved into a hedge. I wonder if Kaepernick honked as he continued down the road.

The league, the NFL Players Association and Kaepernick’s lawyer, Mark Geragos, all announced Friday that the two sides had reached a settlement. (The NFL reached a separate settlement with Carolina Panthers safety Eric Reid in a similar case.) I was pleased to hear this piece of news, for several reasons.

First, I’m happy that Kaepernick is being vindicated in asserting that the NFL blackballed him.

The odds were against him. Any reasonable observer would agree that Kaepernick was better than some of the 70 quarterbacks who threw passes in NFL games in 2018 - certainly better than a few of the 100 or so who saw action during the preseason. There was one reason, and only one reason, the former 49er remained unsigned. NFL teams were scared of his political activism, and how conservative fans would react to signing him.

But collusion is hard to demonstrate. It isn’t enough to prove that 32 teams made terrible, illogical decisions at the quarterback position. Kaepernick had to show that at least two of those teams had acted in concert. He needed proof.

Consider Friday’s announcement your proof. True, the case was not decided in a court of law, and probably never will be. The league, on or off the record, will probably claim there was never evidence of collusion, and that they settled as a matter of expediency.

If any other business or organization made such a claim, you might believe them. Legal settlements are not admissions of guilt. But the NFL doesn’t do much for the sake of expediency. This league has gone to trial in recent years to battle retired players over their pursuit of relief for head injuries and the resultant trauma; to oppose legalized gambling in New Jersey; and to assert its right to suspend players for deflating game-ready footballs (Tom Brady), or for taking banned diuretics (Starcaps), or for committing domestic violence (Ezekiel Elliott).

The NFL has the deepest of pockets, and the most aggressive of lawyers. It doesn’t back down from a fight. But it backed down from Colin Kaepernick. Why? Obviously, this case wasn’t going well for the NFL. The handwriting was on the wall, and it read “COLLUSION.”

I’m also happy that Kaepernick is getting money from his settlement with the NFL. How much money? We don’t know, because both sides are barred from disclosing the figures. I read reports guessing it was anywhere from $50 million to $80 million, but it was all speculation.

Those numbers seem plausible to me, though. Kaepernick made $14.3 million in 2016, his most recent active season. His attorneys would argue (I’m not saying they’d be right) that he would have earned something similar in 2017 and 2018, and that his future revenue and reputation have been damaged by the collusion. I could easily imagine Team Kaepernick asking for $100 million and the two sides meeting somewhere in the middle.

Why am I glad Kaepernick is getting a big payday? Because the man puts his money to good use. As he was forced out of football, and as his activism grew, he donated at least $1 million to community groups that ranged in focus from Mothers Against Police Brutality to Appetite for Change (encouraging health and sustainability in North Minneapolis) to the Center for Reproductive Rights to Meals on Wheels. A million bucks. That’s putting your money where your knee rests.

Maybe other worthy charities will benefit from the collusion settlement. In any case, I trust Kaepernick to spend wisely more than I trust the NFL.

Finally, I’m happy that Kaepernick might get a chance to play in the NFL again, because he deserves to. I’m not sure that he will. He’s 31 now and hasn’t played a down in more than two years. When last seen in the pocket, he wasn’t exactly tearing up the league. NFL owners remain a reactionary bunch. So there’s no guarantee Kaepernick will suit up again. But at least it’s possible now. I don’t think it was as long as his grievance was pending.

But the settlement makes me a little sad, too. Because I really wanted Kaepernick’s case to go to trial, or at least to the discovery phase of the legal process.

A lot of NFL owners and executives, it seems, can’t help but out themselves as the terrible people they are.

Jerry Richardson, former owner of the Carolina Panthers, put the team up for sale when it was reported that he made sexually suggestive comments to female employees, and on at least one occasion directed a racial slur at a Panthers scout who was African-American. The late Bob McNair, then-owner of the Houston Texans, was caught on tape referring to NFL players as “inmates running the prison” as owners discussed the pregame protests Kaepernick had inspired. Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones referred to domestic abuser Greg Hardy as “a leader.” Browns owner Jimmy Haslam owns a company, Pilot Flying J, that was fined nearly $150 million for defrauding customers on gas rebates. Washington’s Dan Snyder? Where do I start?

Imagine these guys, and their top executives, hauled in for depositions and answering questions under oath. Imagine Geragos and his legal team gaining access to emails, memos, text messages and DMs. Imagine the awful, offensive, tone-deaf comments that would have come out in the wash. Imagine peeling back the curtain to see how sports teams conduct their business.

Even if Kaepernick hadn’t won the case, a trial would have been a huge embarrassment to the NFL bigwigs. They knew it, and they produced a stack of money to make sure it didn’t happen.

Too bad. The show might have been uncomfortable, but it would have brought some dark impulses into the light. NFL owners, collectively or independently, hijacked Colin Kaepernick’s career. It would be nice to see them held accountable.