Last Friday, Roger Goodell apologized to NFL players and fans for not previously supporting protests against police brutality and racial inequality. While it was a good first step by Goodell and the NFL, there is still work to be done, particularly when it comes to Colin Kaepernick.
“It’s a baby step in the right direction,” Panthers safety Tre Boston said on The Zach Gelb Show. “We’ll see. This is one thing I’ll say: [from] 2016 to 2020, we had tons of times that you could have read information on Kap, you could have listened to him, you could have heard what he was protesting for, you could have debunked everything that other people had on him. So for us to finally have this to open up eyes – Kap wasn’t wrong – I would like an apology for him, that man. That’s the man who doesn’t have a job. That’s a man who’s unemployed and wants to play in this league.
“So for me, I think it was a step, and I accept steps,” Boston continued. “But actions must also come off of that. So let’s see if Kaepernick gets a job, if Kaepernick gets an apology. Because you can say sorry to us – and some of us did protest – but there’s somebody who is the head of our snake, and I can’t say that I’m happy unless he’s happy because I know how this all started.”
Zach Gelb believes Kaepernick deserves another shot in the NFL but doesn’t think he’ll get it. Boston feels the same.
“Are we okay with that?” he asked. “That’s something we have to ask ourselves as fans, as people who now understand what has happened. Now can you say Kaepernick isn’t good enough to play in this league? Knowing that he should be in this league, are we okay with him still being out if that’s the decision that they make? Because again, we know he can play.”
Of course, there is still a portion of fans who maintain that Kaepernick is not good enough to start in the NFL and that is why he is out of the league.
Boston finds this comical.
“Listen, I stopped arguing starter with people because they truly felt he was lacking what starters [have],” he said. “Obviously you can name plenty of starters right now in this league that he’s better than. But I stopped arguing that because I started seeing how people were acting as if he couldn’t be a backup.”
Kaepernick, Boston said, is better than every backup in the league except for maybe one.
“I could probably say maybe not Jameis Winston now – and we know Jameis Winston should be starting,” Boston said. “We all know how we feel. We all know the actions that should be taken. Will we, just like any other subject, allow this to go on like normal business? I think that’s where we are a nation. We’re starting to understand we cannot allow things to continue to go the way they have if they’re wrong.”