The NFL’s most vocal and notorious former employee may not be a former employee for much longer.
According to new Chargers head coach and longtime Kaepernick confidant Jim Harbaugh, he offered Kaepernick, the NFL’s first national anthem protester, a spot on the Los Angeles Chargers’ coaching staff earlier this year.
“Yeah, we talked a little bit,” Harbaugh said. said In an interview USA Today“He’s under consideration. He was out of the country. He said he’d get in touch with me. I haven’t heard from him since. That was earlier this year.”
Kapernick and Harbaugh have history.
The former Wolverines coach served as head coach of the San Francisco 49ers in 2011 and selected Kaepernick in the second round of that year’s draft. The two led a San Francisco resurgence, leading the 49ers to a winning record, a playoff appearance and a Super Bowl appearance.
The two parted ways after Harbaugh returned to his alma mater, Michigan, as head coach in 2015. Kaepernick terminated his contract with the 49ers and left the NFL after the 2016 season, the same year he knelt during the national anthem before games in protest of America’s right to freedom of expression.
Britain’s Sky Sports interviewed Kaepernick in Paris last weekend, where he was attending the Olympics, and the former 49ers player suggested he still has aspirations of playing in the NFL.
“Hopefully,” Kapernick said. said We just need one of the team owners to speak up when asked about the prospects of returning to the playing field.
“This is something I’ve been training for my whole life. If I can get back on the field, it will be a big moment for me and a big achievement. I also think I can bring a lot to the team and help win a championship.”
Kaepernick has frequently expressed his desire to return to the league, likening the NFL draft process to a slave auction.
In the series Colin in Black and WhiteIn “NBA 49ers,” narrated by Kaepernick, the former 49ers player appears in a scene in which NFL prospects are “poked and prodded and inspected for defects” before the NFL Draft. Later, in “The Combine,” players leave the NFL field and take part in a mid-1800s slave auction, where white landowners inspect slaves for purchase.
In this scene, Kapernick says, “they” thus establish a “power dynamic.” The scene ends with an NFL coach and a slave auctioneer shaking hands with slaves in the background, establishing an intergenerational link between the professional sports selection process and slavery.
https://twitter.com/MythinformedMKE/status/1454561312990715904
If Kaepernick is going to accept Harbaugh’s offer, he’ll have to do so soon. The NFL regular season begins Sept. 5.
