Colin Kaepernick is still without a job in the NFL, going on four seasons since his last snap once games begin this week. Kaepernick, who was effectively blackballed from the league for his protests of racism and police brutality by kneeling during the national anthem, has continued to get looked off by teams seeking quarterback help.
This offseason, amid a resurgence of protests of police brutality and systemic racism across America and a shifting perception of the Black Lives Matter movement, NFL teams swore they would seriously look into bringing him in, but to this point that hasn’t happened. Roger Goodell has gone on record saying he supports a team signing Kaepernick, but as time wears on between NFL snaps the goalposts have shifted to questions about his readiness after years away from the game.
As for Kaepernick himself, he continues to do tremendous work as an activist and has inked deals with ESPN and Netflix as he expands into the media space. Still, he would like to make a return to the football field for a chance to continue a career that was cut short not for injury but for ignorance from the league, and it seems increasingly worrisome that chance may not come. For fans of Kaepernick, EA Sports announced on Tuesday that they had reached a deal with Kaepernick to bring him back to the virtual gridiron, adding him to the list of free agents in the game for Franchise and Play Now modes.
— Madden NFL 24 (@EAMaddenNFL) September 8, 2020
It’s good of EA to work with Kaepernick to add him to the game and as they note in their statement, he is still graded out in the game as a starting caliber quarterback and is the highest rated free agent QB at an 81 overall. Madden 21 certainly has plenty of things to work out and fix as a game, but adding Kaepernick is pretty cool and hopefully in future additions he won’t have to be a separate add on beyond those already on rosters.
