Excuses NFL Teams Have Used for Not Signing Colin Kaepernick

Colin Kaepernick is bringing a lawsuit to the NFL, saying that the league’s franchises colluded in not signing him. It is a tough case to win, because even if he can prove that certain teams chose not to sign him based on his political beliefs, that will not be enough to prove collusion, reports The Ringer. He would also have to provide evidence that multiple teams all agreed to avoid signing him.

However, The Ringer argues, the football arguments for not signing Kaepernick are completely off-base. There are a few: he’s not quite good enough to be a starter, or his style of play doesn’t work well with the team. But The Ringer writes that Kaepernick si the best available unsigned free agent “by leaps and bounds.” He was 17th among qualified players in passer rating in 2016. The Ringer writes that the players who finished 18th through 29th have all started NFL games this year. He also finished second among quarterbacks in rushing yards — though he did not start for the 49ers until October. He had the league’s sixth-best interception rate as well. The Ringer looked at seven NFL teams that have been linked to Kaepernick and decided whether they would be better off with him as their quarterback.

The list includes the Indianapolis Colts, Green Bay Packers, and the Miami Dolphins.

But the Houston Texans are the worst ranked. The Texans started with Tom Savage as QB but benched him quickly for Deshaun Watson, who then tore his ACL. After some signing and cutting, they ended up with Josh Johnson, who The Ringer writes has not thrown a pass in a regular-season NFL game since 2011. The Texans, more than any other team, “appear to demonstrate the falsehood of the popular argument among Kaepernick’s detractors that many franchises are not signing the quarterback because his skill set doesn’t match that of the teams’ starters,” writes The Ringer. Kaepernick would have let Houston keep running the plays that made the team good with Watson under center.

But another issue is that head coach Bill O’Brien said they didn’t hire Kaepernick because he “hasn’t played in a while” but Johnson hasn’t played since December 11, 2011. On top of that, Savage, Yates, and Johnson are “all worse than Kaepernick by almost any conceivable metric.”