One week later… Colin Kaepernick still awaits call from an NFL team

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So was the invitation just a stunt? One week after Colin Kaepernick showed prospective NFL teams what he’s working with, not a single team has called him.

Kaepernick is still waiting for a quarterback spot on a team – with his reps sending his combine footage to 25 franchises that didn’t make it out to his Riverdale, Georgia practice session on Nov. 16 at Charles R. Drew High School, according to Complex.

READ MORE: OPINION: Is this Colin Kaepernick ‘workout’ the real deal or just more NFL shenanigans?

Initially, sources told ESPN that some teams were interested in pursuing Kaepernick, 32, and that it may take weeks for a contract to materialize, but that it was coming. This hasn’t happened, and now sources speculate that it won’t. The quarterback has been out of work for three years, ever since he started taking a knee during the playing of the national anthem, in protest of police brutality and social justice inequities. Kaepernick’s last NFL job was as quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, which he took to the Super Bowl in 2013.

The NFL blames Kaepernick for switching up on his NFL scheduled workout in Atlanta and moving the session to Riverdale, which is roughly an hour away. Twenty-five NFL teams showed up at the Atlanta Falcons’ practice facility, but when Kaepernick moved it to Riverdale after potential problems with a liability waiver, only seven teams showed up.

The NFL issued a statement, essentially saying the league bent over backwards to accommodate Kaepernick’s tryouts, and was “disappointed” that he did not do the combine as planned. Sports analysts, players and NFL fans also entered the fray with Stephen A. Smith and Panthers’ Eric Reid, one of Kap’s diehards, going at each other’s throats on Instagram.

 

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The more you talk, the more ridiculous you sound, @e_reid35. Actually, it’s worse than I thought since you’re the one tweeting at me hours before a damn game. And speaking of the game, weren’t you in Atlanta in attendance for Kaepernick’s workout yesterday — before having to leave EARLY to play for a team in a league you’re feeling so oppressed by? Wasn’t that you? Just asking! Hold on! I have more! That same Malcolm X — who we all revere for life — you just brought up acknowledged there were slight errors in his thinking. You didn’t bring that up? You Eric Reid went through the same process Kap was suppose to be go through and you’re still playing on Sunday. But you didn’t bring that up! And unlike you, walking around and doing nothing but bitching at every turn, myself and many others in the media have religiously called out the NFL for blackballing Kap. We’ve religiously highlighted the unfairness of it all. And some of us have worked behind the scenes, trying to help Jay-Z and others in their quest to get Kap back in the league. Meanwhile, what is Eric Reid doing? Complaining like he wants to be on @firsttake. Failing to stop the run on Sundays. Talking S$&@ about the NFL at every turn…….but asking for that check, no doubt! Yet, I’m the one tap dancing. Why? Because I’m gainfully employed while trying to remind youngsters out her of the pitfalls that lie-in-wait. Meanwhile, someone like you continues to throw professionalism, decorum and decency into the wind — sending folks down a dead-end path — all because your boy isn’t getting precisely his way…..when NO ONE gets their way. So who’s the SELLOUT! Guess what, it’s neither of us. We just have a difference of opinion. I still respect the hell out of your immature, belligerent self. But I’m going to call it like I see it. Kaepernick made a mistake the way he handled all this…….IF he really wants a job in the NFL. Period. And your contribution to all of this doesn’t help. It hurts. It ain’t about you being wrong. It’s about you needing to grow the hell up. Your decision. Your life! Do you!

A post shared by Stephen A. Smith (@stephenasmith) on Nov 17, 2019 at 9:48am PST

Reid essentially called Smith a sell-out for ridiculing Kap’s decision to switch up locations for his workout. “You, Malcolm Jenkins and JAY-Z prance around doing the NFL’s bidding to try 2 burry Colin,” Reid wrote. “You r mistaken by thinking that because you or anybody is black that you are spared from my criticism especially when you’ve been so blatantly on the NFL’s side in corrupting their own process to hinder Colin’s employment.”

READ MORE: Stephen A. Smith scores blockbuster new contract with ESPN

Smith fired back that Reid needs to grow up and look in the mirror.

“You …went through the same process Kap was suppose to be go through and you’re still playing on Sunday. But you didn’t bring that up! And unlike you, walking around and doing nothing but bitching at every turn, myself and many others in the media have religiously called out the NFL for blackballing Kap. We’ve religiously highlighted the unfairness of it all. And some of us have worked behind the scenes, trying to help JAY-Z and others in their quest to get Kap back in the league,” Smith wrote. “Meanwhile, what is Eric Reid doing? Complaining like he wants to be on @firsttake. Failing to stop the run on Sundays. Talking S$&@ about the NFL at every turn…….but asking for that check, no doubt!”

Ouch.