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Sometimes it becomes obvious whether you'll be on the wrong side or right side of history. When we look back on this in 20 years it's become clear to me that t

Sometimes it becomes obvious whether you'll be on the wrong side or right side of history. When we look back on this in 20 years it's become clear to me that the NFL's stance on CTE and Kaepernick will have them squarely on the wrong side of history.

ghostbrainalpha 8y ago
Yep... but 25 years from now they will have "Kaepernick Day" once a year, and give everyone a free bobble head and everyone will be free to celebrate the NFL guilt free. Despite the fact that most of the teams will still be owned by the same individuals, and definitely the same families.... IF I was a conspiracy guy I would almost think that all the flag waiving and controversial decisions are designed to distract us from the fact that the NFL is the world's sketchiest non-profit. Not only does it not pay taxes as an entity despite its CEO's $31 million dollar salary, but the teams receive billions in tax payer funds to build the new stadiums they require. And they must have these new stadiums to stay competitive with the other NFL franchises... who just got new stadiums. It's a crazy arms race to keep your NFL team, and no one is talking about that fact that we could also level the playing field by having all the states agree NOT to build stadiums with tax payer dollars, instead of letting the NFL play different tax bases off each other to extract the maximum dollars from us.
- tonyztan 8y ago
  > "The NFL is the world's sketchiest non-profit." While I don't disagree with the rest of your post, I'd like to point out that the NFL is no longer a non-profit: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/tax-season/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/tax-season/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2015/04/28/the-nfl-is-dropping-its-tax-exempt-status-why-that-ends-up-helping-them-out/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2015/04/28/t...
- jedberg 8y ago
  The NFL isn't as bad of a tax scam as you make it out to be. The central coordinating organization doesn't pay taxes, but that's because they distribute all the money they make to the teams, which DO pay taxes, and lots of them. That's why cities are happy to subsidize them. Because with the revenue sharing, they get taxes on money that wasn't even made in their state. Building stadiums with public money and then charging the public to enter is really crappy, but in the end it does in fact benefit the location in some cases. And you can see the pushback already starting. San Diego and Oakland wouldn't build new stadiums, so those teams moved. One went to LA, where they are building a new stadium with Olympics money which will be used by the Chargers, and Las Vegas was happy to bring in all the extra people to gamble. So in both cases those stadiums will probably be net positives for their cities.
  - ghostbrainalpha 8y ago
    I'm from Las Vegas and that's not a great description of the situation. The vote to approve the stadium will rank as one of the top 5 most corrupt things to ever happen in our city... which was formerly ran by the mob. And think about this... the capacity of the stadium is 65,000. If all 8 games are SELLOUTS, and every single attendee looses $100 to the casinos after every single game, that's 52 million dollars. So it would take about 20 years to pay for the Billion dollar stadium. Obviously thats disastrously simplified, but if you think we can pay for this stadium with just a small tax on the increased revenue.... that's way way off.
    - jedberg 8y ago
      Presumably that person coming to the game is not only betting, but is also staying at a hotel, eating a few meals, flying into and out of the airport, and gambling at the hotel. It's how you guys make most of your tax base, so I'd assume an increase in the tax base would be good. Now the new traffic on the other hand...
      - ghostbrainalpha 8y ago
        That's why I was saying my model was over simplified. Obviously those people will spend a lot of money, but even if they ALL fly here Airport visitation stats won't go up 1%. If we wanted to bring more visitors to Las Vegas pretty much any other way to spend a Billion dollars would have been more productive. The politicians never even tried to make that argument, at least to a sophisticated audience. It's all about legacy, and home town spirit. Apparently a lot of people can't really be proud of a city that doesn't have an NFL team to root for. Bottom line is we spent more to get an NFL team than any other city, and we are getting less out it than most cities, because we already have to many things to compete for a tourist's dollar and we didn't need a "star attraction" to revitalize an aging downtown or some of the other rationalizations other cities have used.
      - masonic 8y ago
        As a Raiders season ticket holder, I can assure you that their division games (Chargers, Chiefs, Broncos) don't draw well. The visitors that draw, when you get them, are Steelers, Pats, Cowboys, maybe Chicago if their uptrend continues. But being Vegas is a wild card; there will be an attraction to Vegas, though not necessarily the stadium, on game weekends.
- astura 8y ago
  The NFL dropped its tax-exempt status a few years ago (in order to make compensation - and other business practices - secret). Furthermore, the non-profit status only applied to the NFL League Office, not to the teams themselves, thus the vast majority of revenue was taxable. The NFL isn't the only sports league who once rocked the not-for-profit status, NHL is currently a nonprofit and MLB was formally one. I can think of much. much sketchier non-profits. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2015/04/28/the-nfl-is-dropping-its-tax-exempt-status-why-that-ends-up-helping-them-out/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2015/04/28/t... The public is starting to lose interest in subsiding for-profit teams, thankfully.
- jayess 8y ago
  > Not only does it not pay taxes as an entity despite its CEO's $31 million dollar salary So it operates like every single partnership out there, tax-wise.
- StevePerkins 8y ago
  > "... the NFL is the world's sketchiest non-profit" Ehh, broaden your perspective. At its absolute worst, the NFL can't begin to touch the corruption of FIFA at its absolute best.
- kelnos 8y ago
  > Not only does it not pay taxes as an entity despite its CEO's $31 million dollar salary I'd never shy away from ragging on the NFL for being a shady organization, but: a) The NFL gave up its tax-exempt status in 2015 (and even then, it was only the head office [~$10M in new taxes paid], not the teams, that was tax exempt). b) What does the CEO's salary have to do with it? The salary itself is taxable as income. Non-profit employees don't get to dodge the IRS. (Of course, I expect Goodell to do his best to avoid paying income tax as many wealthy people do.)
aaron-lebo 8y ago
You know I probably shouldn't bother wading into this, but in 20 years nobody is going to care about Kaep. While the league officially didn't do anything towards him, and multiple teams gave him a chance, there are worse QBs that got rostered while he was on the street, so yeah, it was unfair. That being said, he statistically was a really mediocre QB. You can be as outspoken as you want if you are good, but if you're mediocre and you bring distractions (and while important, it was a distraction), you're not going to get hired in lots of industries. IIRC, Kaep got a tryout by the Ravens and his girlfriend called the owner a plantation owner. That kind of stuff isn't going to fly, you can't just burn bridges. But teams like the Hawks (who seem progressive enough) declined having him as a backup, so maybe he wasn't good enough. You can look it up yourself. His last two years in the league Kaep had a QBR of 43 and 49. Bortles, who nobody feels is great, had a QBR of 59 and 44 his last two years, in comparison. He's a backup level QB in a league with lots of backup level QBs.
- atomical 8y ago
  So only the greatest QB's are allowed to take a stand?
  - aaron-lebo 8y ago
    Not at all. I'm just saying, the guy got repeated tryouts. He was not shunned the way people act like he was. It really helps your cause when you are great, and you gotta be realistic about consequences (and narratives) when you aren't because people will find every reason to tear down even those that are great. Nike's selling shoes off that. That's not commercially exploitative?
    - southphillyman 8y ago
      >I'm just saying, the guy got repeated tryouts He never got any try out's. That's the whole basis of his grievance. The Bronco's offered to trade for him before he was cut, but he'd take a $4million paycut so he declined. After he was cut there were no try outs or offers.
rfinney 8y ago
"Photos then surfaced of him wearing socks depicting police officers as pigs." https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/colin-kaepernick-socks/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/colin-kaepernick-socks/ Sorry, this guy was over the hill and a severe locker room distraction. Too much drama, not enough talent. A mixed talent for sure but with some horrific stats: (Since the NFL merger (1970), among all 186 quarterbacks with at least 1,500 attempts throughout their careers, only David Carr has a worse Sack%+ (era-adjusted sack percentage) than Kaepernick). [ source : https://www.profootballfocus.com/news/fantasy-football-metrics-that-matter-just-how-good-or-not-is-colin-kaepernick https://www.profootballfocus.com/news/fantasy-football-metri... ... which does make an argument he was okay at some other stats ]. There's a reason he was riding the bench.
- BigChiefSmokem 8y ago
  No such thing as too much drama, just lazy thoughts.
- oinkesque 8y ago
  Are you seriously whining about a pair of socks?
  - 52-6F-62 8y ago
    Sadly that kind of thing picked up with some crowds in Canada regarding our PM's chosen attire as well. It seems to really strike some people for some reason.
- wingkongex 8y ago
  Drama is in the NFL's DNA. It just wasn't the type of "drama" that the owners wanted to be bothered with. And you forgot to add the poignant response that Colin had to those dumb socks.
- LeifCarrotson 8y ago
  Kaepernick does take more sacks than most, instead of making low-percentage/interception-likely pressured throws, he holds out. A lot of that is on his offensive linemen, though. Regardless of whether you like the guy, Chart Party had an excellent special on Colin, and feels quite differently: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1I0cUTXwr-k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1I0cUTXwr-k
jdoliner 8y ago
These are both bad, but 20 years from now I think we'll look back on the NFL's refusal to play Sweet Victory as their real undoing.
bedhead 8y ago
John Elway, who is the GM of the Broncos, gave an interview a few months ago about Kaepernick after he had given a deposition as part of Kaepernick's lawsuit against the NFL. Elway knew he'd get in some trouble since I guess he wasn't supposed to talk about it, but he sniped that teams (or it might have just been the Broncos that he was sure of) had offered Kaepernick a contract but that Kaepernick turned them all down because he simply wanted more money.
- albedoa 8y ago
  Surprise! Not only was Elway being misleading, he was also admitting to complicity: https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/john-elway-blames-colin-kaepernick-for-no-job-had-his-chance-to-be-here-omits-key-fact/ https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/john-elway-blames-colin-k... > Not that it was hard to find: you can easily fire up a search engine and figure out that Elway talked to the 49ers about trading for Kaepernick, before the quarterback was released, back in April of 2016. [...] > In other words, this is also not great for Elway [...] because it creates a pretty clear juxtaposition: the Broncos were interested in Kap before he began to protest and not so much after he began to protest.
  - Zimahl 8y ago
    Regardless of whether or not Elway was being misleading, the problem is that Kaepernick is suing the NFL because he says there is collusion to keep him out of the league. The plain fact is that he can't get a job in the league because he's too expensive. Before last season he met with the Seahawks about the backup position and apparently wanted anywhere from $3-5 million to be the backup. There are very few teams that would waste that salary cap space for a backup QB, when that can pay for another player or two who can actually contribute to the games. The Seahawks declined signing him, and got a backup that only cost them $700k for the season. It's hard to win a collusion case when you have job offers but you just don't like what they are paying.
    - lawtguy 8y ago
      3-5 million would put Kaepernick in the same category as Chase Daniel, Matt Schaub, Mike Glennon, Chad Henne, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Drew Stanton and Colt McCoy. That doesn't sound like crazy money given the company he'd be in.
StevePerkins 8y ago
> "...Kaepernick will have them squarely on the wrong side of history" I wouldn't be so sure about that. Remember Craig Hodges? Michael Jordan's teammate, who won two championships and lead the NBA in 3-point shooting for three years? Probably not. He was the Colin Kaepernick of the 1990's, and virtually doesn't exist now. Never underestimate the ability of money and power to shape the history books. Likewise never overestimate people's attention spans. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craig_Hodges#Political_activism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craig_Hodges#Political_activis...
- hopler 8y ago
  A bit different. Hodges didn't press his case in front of cameras at games, and media/news is much more pervasive now on general.
masonic 8y ago
Kaepernick? Oh, please. He barely had the arm (and that ended with his shoulder injury) and never had the mind (as was ultimately revealed by the whole checkdown-sequence talk being a fabrication and all plays instead being specifically scripted). He took a Super Bowl caliber team and ruined it with basic mindless play. I say this as a 49ers season ticket holder who saw every game and training camp he played. Every NFL bad actor with talent gets lots of second chances. He simply lacked the necessary mindset.

ghostbrainalpha 8y ago

Yep... but 25 years from now they will have "Kaepernick Day" once a year, and give everyone a free bobble head and everyone will be free to celebrate the NFL guilt free. Despite the fact that most of the teams will still be owned by the same individuals, and definitely the same families.... IF I was a conspiracy guy I would almost think that all the flag waiving and controversial decisions are designed to distract us from the fact that the NFL is the world's sketchiest non-profit. Not only does it not pay taxes as an entity despite its CEO's $31 million dollar salary, but the teams receive billions in tax payer funds to build the new stadiums they require. And they must have these new stadiums to stay competitive with the other NFL franchises... who just got new stadiums. It's a crazy arms race to keep your NFL team, and no one is talking about that fact that we could also level the playing field by having all the states agree NOT to build stadiums with tax payer dollars, instead of letting the NFL play different tax bases off each other to extract the maximum dollars from us.

tonyztan 8y ago
> "The NFL is the world's sketchiest non-profit." While I don't disagree with the rest of your post, I'd like to point out that the NFL is no longer a non-profit: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/tax-season/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/tax-season/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2015/04/28/the-nfl-is-dropping-its-tax-exempt-status-why-that-ends-up-helping-them-out/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2015/04/28/t...
jedberg 8y ago
The NFL isn't as bad of a tax scam as you make it out to be. The central coordinating organization doesn't pay taxes, but that's because they distribute all the money they make to the teams, which DO pay taxes, and lots of them. That's why cities are happy to subsidize them. Because with the revenue sharing, they get taxes on money that wasn't even made in their state. Building stadiums with public money and then charging the public to enter is really crappy, but in the end it does in fact benefit the location in some cases. And you can see the pushback already starting. San Diego and Oakland wouldn't build new stadiums, so those teams moved. One went to LA, where they are building a new stadium with Olympics money which will be used by the Chargers, and Las Vegas was happy to bring in all the extra people to gamble. So in both cases those stadiums will probably be net positives for their cities.
- ghostbrainalpha 8y ago
  I'm from Las Vegas and that's not a great description of the situation. The vote to approve the stadium will rank as one of the top 5 most corrupt things to ever happen in our city... which was formerly ran by the mob. And think about this... the capacity of the stadium is 65,000. If all 8 games are SELLOUTS, and every single attendee looses $100 to the casinos after every single game, that's 52 million dollars. So it would take about 20 years to pay for the Billion dollar stadium. Obviously thats disastrously simplified, but if you think we can pay for this stadium with just a small tax on the increased revenue.... that's way way off.
  - jedberg 8y ago
    Presumably that person coming to the game is not only betting, but is also staying at a hotel, eating a few meals, flying into and out of the airport, and gambling at the hotel. It's how you guys make most of your tax base, so I'd assume an increase in the tax base would be good. Now the new traffic on the other hand...
    - ghostbrainalpha 8y ago
      That's why I was saying my model was over simplified. Obviously those people will spend a lot of money, but even if they ALL fly here Airport visitation stats won't go up 1%. If we wanted to bring more visitors to Las Vegas pretty much any other way to spend a Billion dollars would have been more productive. The politicians never even tried to make that argument, at least to a sophisticated audience. It's all about legacy, and home town spirit. Apparently a lot of people can't really be proud of a city that doesn't have an NFL team to root for. Bottom line is we spent more to get an NFL team than any other city, and we are getting less out it than most cities, because we already have to many things to compete for a tourist's dollar and we didn't need a "star attraction" to revitalize an aging downtown or some of the other rationalizations other cities have used.
    - masonic 8y ago
      As a Raiders season ticket holder, I can assure you that their division games (Chargers, Chiefs, Broncos) don't draw well. The visitors that draw, when you get them, are Steelers, Pats, Cowboys, maybe Chicago if their uptrend continues. But being Vegas is a wild card; there will be an attraction to Vegas, though not necessarily the stadium, on game weekends.
astura 8y ago
The NFL dropped its tax-exempt status a few years ago (in order to make compensation - and other business practices - secret). Furthermore, the non-profit status only applied to the NFL League Office, not to the teams themselves, thus the vast majority of revenue was taxable. The NFL isn't the only sports league who once rocked the not-for-profit status, NHL is currently a nonprofit and MLB was formally one. I can think of much. much sketchier non-profits. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2015/04/28/the-nfl-is-dropping-its-tax-exempt-status-why-that-ends-up-helping-them-out/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2015/04/28/t... The public is starting to lose interest in subsiding for-profit teams, thankfully.
jayess 8y ago
> Not only does it not pay taxes as an entity despite its CEO's $31 million dollar salary So it operates like every single partnership out there, tax-wise.
StevePerkins 8y ago
> "... the NFL is the world's sketchiest non-profit" Ehh, broaden your perspective. At its absolute worst, the NFL can't begin to touch the corruption of FIFA at its absolute best.
kelnos 8y ago
> Not only does it not pay taxes as an entity despite its CEO's $31 million dollar salary I'd never shy away from ragging on the NFL for being a shady organization, but: a) The NFL gave up its tax-exempt status in 2015 (and even then, it was only the head office [~$10M in new taxes paid], not the teams, that was tax exempt). b) What does the CEO's salary have to do with it? The salary itself is taxable as income. Non-profit employees don't get to dodge the IRS. (Of course, I expect Goodell to do his best to avoid paying income tax as many wealthy people do.)

aaron-lebo 8y ago

You know I probably shouldn't bother wading into this, but in 20 years nobody is going to care about Kaep. While the league officially didn't do anything towards him, and multiple teams gave him a chance, there are worse QBs that got rostered while he was on the street, so yeah, it was unfair. That being said, he statistically was a really mediocre QB. You can be as outspoken as you want if you are good, but if you're mediocre and you bring distractions (and while important, it was a distraction), you're not going to get hired in lots of industries. IIRC, Kaep got a tryout by the Ravens and his girlfriend called the owner a plantation owner. That kind of stuff isn't going to fly, you can't just burn bridges. But teams like the Hawks (who seem progressive enough) declined having him as a backup, so maybe he wasn't good enough. You can look it up yourself. His last two years in the league Kaep had a QBR of 43 and 49. Bortles, who nobody feels is great, had a QBR of 59 and 44 his last two years, in comparison. He's a backup level QB in a league with lots of backup level QBs.

atomical 8y ago
So only the greatest QB's are allowed to take a stand?
- aaron-lebo 8y ago
  Not at all. I'm just saying, the guy got repeated tryouts. He was not shunned the way people act like he was. It really helps your cause when you are great, and you gotta be realistic about consequences (and narratives) when you aren't because people will find every reason to tear down even those that are great. Nike's selling shoes off that. That's not commercially exploitative?
  - southphillyman 8y ago
    >I'm just saying, the guy got repeated tryouts He never got any try out's. That's the whole basis of his grievance. The Bronco's offered to trade for him before he was cut, but he'd take a $4million paycut so he declined. After he was cut there were no try outs or offers.

rfinney 8y ago

"Photos then surfaced of him wearing socks depicting police officers as pigs." https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/colin-kaepernick-socks/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/colin-kaepernick-socks/ Sorry, this guy was over the hill and a severe locker room distraction. Too much drama, not enough talent. A mixed talent for sure but with some horrific stats: (Since the NFL merger (1970), among all 186 quarterbacks with at least 1,500 attempts throughout their careers, only David Carr has a worse Sack%+ (era-adjusted sack percentage) than Kaepernick). [ source : https://www.profootballfocus.com/news/fantasy-football-metrics-that-matter-just-how-good-or-not-is-colin-kaepernick https://www.profootballfocus.com/news/fantasy-football-metri... ... which does make an argument he was okay at some other stats ]. There's a reason he was riding the bench.

BigChiefSmokem 8y ago
No such thing as too much drama, just lazy thoughts.
oinkesque 8y ago
Are you seriously whining about a pair of socks?
- 52-6F-62 8y ago
  Sadly that kind of thing picked up with some crowds in Canada regarding our PM's chosen attire as well. It seems to really strike some people for some reason.
wingkongex 8y ago
Drama is in the NFL's DNA. It just wasn't the type of "drama" that the owners wanted to be bothered with. And you forgot to add the poignant response that Colin had to those dumb socks.
LeifCarrotson 8y ago
Kaepernick does take more sacks than most, instead of making low-percentage/interception-likely pressured throws, he holds out. A lot of that is on his offensive linemen, though. Regardless of whether you like the guy, Chart Party had an excellent special on Colin, and feels quite differently: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1I0cUTXwr-k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1I0cUTXwr-k

jdoliner 8y ago

These are both bad, but 20 years from now I think we'll look back on the NFL's refusal to play Sweet Victory as their real undoing.

bedhead 8y ago

John Elway, who is the GM of the Broncos, gave an interview a few months ago about Kaepernick after he had given a deposition as part of Kaepernick's lawsuit against the NFL. Elway knew he'd get in some trouble since I guess he wasn't supposed to talk about it, but he sniped that teams (or it might have just been the Broncos that he was sure of) had offered Kaepernick a contract but that Kaepernick turned them all down because he simply wanted more money.

albedoa 8y ago
Surprise! Not only was Elway being misleading, he was also admitting to complicity: https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/john-elway-blames-colin-kaepernick-for-no-job-had-his-chance-to-be-here-omits-key-fact/ https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/john-elway-blames-colin-k... > Not that it was hard to find: you can easily fire up a search engine and figure out that Elway talked to the 49ers about trading for Kaepernick, before the quarterback was released, back in April of 2016. [...] > In other words, this is also not great for Elway [...] because it creates a pretty clear juxtaposition: the Broncos were interested in Kap before he began to protest and not so much after he began to protest.
- Zimahl 8y ago
  Regardless of whether or not Elway was being misleading, the problem is that Kaepernick is suing the NFL because he says there is collusion to keep him out of the league. The plain fact is that he can't get a job in the league because he's too expensive. Before last season he met with the Seahawks about the backup position and apparently wanted anywhere from $3-5 million to be the backup. There are very few teams that would waste that salary cap space for a backup QB, when that can pay for another player or two who can actually contribute to the games. The Seahawks declined signing him, and got a backup that only cost them $700k for the season. It's hard to win a collusion case when you have job offers but you just don't like what they are paying.
  - lawtguy 8y ago
    3-5 million would put Kaepernick in the same category as Chase Daniel, Matt Schaub, Mike Glennon, Chad Henne, Ryan Fitzpatrick, Drew Stanton and Colt McCoy. That doesn't sound like crazy money given the company he'd be in.

StevePerkins 8y ago

> "...Kaepernick will have them squarely on the wrong side of history" I wouldn't be so sure about that. Remember Craig Hodges? Michael Jordan's teammate, who won two championships and lead the NBA in 3-point shooting for three years? Probably not. He was the Colin Kaepernick of the 1990's, and virtually doesn't exist now. Never underestimate the ability of money and power to shape the history books. Likewise never overestimate people's attention spans. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craig_Hodges#Political_activism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craig_Hodges#Political_activis...

hopler 8y ago
A bit different. Hodges didn't press his case in front of cameras at games, and media/news is much more pervasive now on general.

masonic 8y ago

Kaepernick? Oh, please. He barely had the arm (and that ended with his shoulder injury) and never had the mind (as was ultimately revealed by the whole checkdown-sequence talk being a fabrication and all plays instead being specifically scripted). He took a Super Bowl caliber team and ruined it with basic mindless play. I say this as a 49ers season ticket holder who saw every game and training camp he played. Every NFL bad actor with talent gets lots of second chances. He simply lacked the necessary mindset.