Dan Le Batard Reacts to Latest Colin Kaepernick News & Why NFL Can't Make Up for Blackballing Him

the Chargers and Jim Harbaugh have offered Colin Kaepernick a coaching position I that's got we'll take it yeah welcome back to the league Babs well but hold on no no on he's got to accept it over Zoom thank you Tony that's correct but that also hurts other things that he's got cooking in the background tooot he's considering it he was out of the country he said he was going to get back to me Jim told you us a today so he is considering it but the breaking news could have been substantively bigger uh if it had been a quarterbacking position pretty big a a coaching position we'll talk about this uh next um I get what you're saying it can never make up for what happened to him but like man let's let's be let's be honest and let's be real like it's miles better than anything anyone any other gesture anyone has done I'm not saying if this sound like I was in any way critical of Harbaugh here I want that corrected yes Harbaugh is extending to Colin Kaepernick something that no one else has extended as recently as I don't know I'm going to say a year and a half ago was it the Ravens that were going to try and do a tryy out and all of it was too hot for even just a tryy out was something that was too hot for everybody involved and so they didn't end up doing it or the NFL tried to do like a group workout and then Kaepernick didn't agree to certain specifications and the whole thing got nuked the idea that everything around this person who didn't have any sort of problems before this would be so flammable that not only the prime of his career would be wrecked but we'd sort of shrug at the idea well Jim Harbaugh is certainly Brave doing something no one else has done just suggest to me that we've moved all of the lines on where fairness is has he said that he wants to coach right like they offer him the job but like has been trying to get a coaching J he's been saying he's still training to play that he's been he says he's been getting ready for the league for the last six years this has been super weird in a number of different ways he was so scarred by everything that happened there that the way he decided to finally address it publicly think about if you've seen this a lot because where have you seen Kaepernick interviewed since all of this happened no he decided to do it with artistically with a Netflix explanation that starred Nick off as his father he decided to do it instead of going into the way anyone else would have done this what is rehabbing your image that didn't actually need rehabbing where does it start an interview you sit down and you give your side we have still not heard from Kaepernick like we have not had him sit down and say any of what he thinks about anything it's just reported here and reported there and it's been so long that his athletic Prime is now gone and and we're in a place where we're applauding the reduced standard after racism has ended in the end zone where they do their stenciling and after the Absurd day where Patrick Mahomes finally says what Kaepernick what happened to him was wrong and then Goodell says hey sorry sorry about all of that it still takes years after that to get to ah how about a coach an assistant coaching job Star Quarterback let's look at all the other star quarterbacks who are as good as he is that have to accept an assistant coaching job that offered to them by a friend and and by the way Dan the other thing that I found kind of suspicious is they offered him the job According to Jim Harbor and Colin is is traveling but he's going to consider it why would Jim Harbaugh feel the need to let us know all that wouldn't they just go through the process and at the end of it say Hey you know aler KH he didn't want to do it or hey you know guess what guys I got you Colin Kaepernick back like why would you say hey guys guess who I'm talking to he's out of the country now but he hasn't given us an answer yet yeah there's a lot going on with this that like I I'm trying to jog my own memory of some of it it looks like Kaepernick did that GMA interview two years ago where he was saying that he still wanted to be back in the NFL and was still training for it but I was going back to 2016 because I don't remember Jim Harbaugh always being very supportive of him and I remember he made some comments like initially in 2016 that were like I disagree with what he's doing and and like no one really had KH Kaepernick's back at especially at the head coaching level at that time so um but I do think he then kind of went and like walked some of that back a few years later so this is all I again like I'm trying to like remember but this is super complicated goes back like eight years now to what happened when and I'm figuring it out I'll let again no that's his athletic Prime and it ended up getting chewed up by that and that GMA interview was a as part of the promotion for what it is that he was doing for Netflix you got to do one of those it wasn't a long form interview where we get deep access to his thoughts he's still kind of gun he's got to say the right things before they'll let him back into the league uh in in any form they're going to expect from him some sort of public Contrition for something that uh that he wasn't wrong about like expressing expressing his free rights to protest and he got banned from the league he got blacklisted and they ended his career I'm I'm I'm surprised that all of you like I'm not forgiving on this one coaching job like no that's that's not quite enough that's not that's that's that's not reparations at this stage though at this stage I I agree I I I'm with you 100% but at this stage they don't have a time machine at this stage what could they offer him that would that would that would make it up there's nothing they could offer that can make it up much like there while you can offer reparations to black people in this country for centuries of of violence institutionalized violence it's never going to make up for it it it's like a it's a it's a consolation it's a start it's a start but it's never gonna make up for slavery you say what could they do I think since they like you said why broadcast and why publicize the fact that you offered a man a job so if you into that kind of gimmick will bring him in for a quarterback uh session or competition for the summertime if you just concerned with the gimmick of looking like you're helping him when you say I mean at this stage what you can you do the answer is outside of putting him in a uniform and allowing him to play the position what you've done is simply unforgivable doesn't matter whether your commissioner apologizes for it doesn't matter if you give him a coaching job you ended the prime of this man's career at the most valuable position it can't be forgiven unless he's allowed a chance back to get at that position it's there's just there are no moves that are going to impress me here that aren't going to feel so like PR if they brought him in let's say for camp and he's he's 36 he's going to be 37 in November if they brought him in and he got beat out by someone else which is conceivable he's been out the game for seven years no at this point he can't but that's my point expected no what they've done is it's not correctable exactly that's my point but it's my point too no okay so we agree great job whose point is we did it take my hand agree to disagree no agree to to agree agree to agree I'm still doing my research back here on what who said what win you understand what I'm saying D if we both agree that it's not correctable then there literally isn't anything that we can ever be positive about There is almost there's nothing that I can think of other than inventing a time machine that the NFL could possibly do so that in my mind I can forget and forgive what they've already done to him if the NFL did have a time machine and went back do you think they would have done this all differently yeah they wouldn't had ended segregation they would have kept you I no too much I don't think uh good job I don't think that they uh if presented with the same circumstances I don't think that they would know how to handle it any better because their instinct is to punish it and they'd punish it then and they're just better about hiding that they punish it now they haven't actually changed they apologized without actually making some of the changes that you would have to make so that if that happened this season if CJ Stroud knelt and and by the way if you want to criticize what Kaepernick was at the time go look at some of the things that he did running and moving and you would have said that uh that was uh in a playoff game unprecedented what he did to beat Aaron roders in Green Bay uh if that happened again today it would play out the same way again today because Jerry Jones isn't actually going to change how he thinks about things and Jerry Jones is the most powerful owner in the league surrounded by a whole lot of other owners in the league who are very good at how they protect that power Dan Larry David once said the the central theme the central really pillar of who we are at Seinfeld was the characters at the end of the episode cannot have learned anything or become better from their experience like they can do all these things and usually sitcom's like well I never really thought about like that and then we have a nice ending Larry said we can't do that any the end of the episode they need to be the same awful people they were at the beginning right Having learned nothing and grown absolutely zero as human beings that's the NFL like there is no learning there is no progress there is just hey what prints money all right keep the money Printing and everything else be D I would say that there generally is learning if you're really and authentically sorry but they're not really an authentic the NFL you think that's what I'm saying the NFL doesn't they don't they they learn how to make more money that's about it but that but over their decision made them more money their league is stronger than it's ever been Goodell is making more money than he's ever made those owners are making more money than they ever made so um in order that I get in trouble at home uh with Valerie if my apologies aren't cuz I'm really sorry of course of course like you've got to really be sorry it can't be you're sorry and then explain why you're not actually wrong about stuff like you can't say hey I'm sorry Jacksonville I'm sorry you smell like that that kind of apology exactly that's not the way to apologize I have learned since then how to apologize Jacksonville you smell close to I'm sorry oh wait a minute no no no because these apologies are based on you being married now you apologize as a married man just to get off the a we're trying to move away from this right now what that's a great Point that's what the NFL did the old ball and chain that's what the NFL did I did not say that do not balling say that oh my wife I'll just do whatever she says so I can sleep in the bed tonight exactly that nag and then I watch some wait sorry wrong voice I always sleep in the bed no matter what exactly Roy you're agreeing with misogynist Bane well up until the the whole nag comment she said between that but but but that's in essence what the NFL did it's like what can I do to make you shut up I'm sorry which by the way a settlement isn't exactly I'm sorry it's just here take this money shut up