Race and football

Teams are probably blacklisting Kaepernick for his politics — but are not necessarily in cahoots.

Colin Kaepernick has been unemployed since March. A quarterback in America’s National Football League (NFL), Mr Kaepernick led the San Francisco 49ers to the Super Bowl during his first season as a starter in 2012. But he only gained broader notoriety last year, when he began kneeling when the national anthem was played before games, to protest the injustice experienced by racial minorities in America. Mr Kaepernick and the 49ers parted ways at the end of the 2016 season, and since then no team has been willing to sign him. Suspecting a conspiracy, on October 15th Mr Kaepernick filed a formal grievance under the league’s collective-bargaining agreement. He accused the NFL’s 32 owners of colluding to keep him off the field.

Mr Kaepernick has strong reason to believe he deserves a job in the NFL. Although he may not be an elite quarterback, every team needs a signal-caller, and Mr Kaepernick is clearly among the 32 most qualified people on Earth for the role. Among the 36 NFL quarterbacks who threw for at least 1,000 yards during the 2016 regular season, Mr Kaepernick’s passer rating, a measure of a quarterback’s efficiency, ranked 19th. His total of 12 touchdowns might appear modest, but he also managed to stay out of trouble by surrendering only four interceptions.

At just 29 years old, Mr Kaepernick was both younger and more skilled than many other quarterbacks who were free agents in the 2017 offseason and had no trouble finding employment. Consider 34-year-old Ryan Fitzpatrick, who threw the same number of touchdowns as Mr Kaepernick did in 2016 but also gave up 13 more interceptions. Despite that grim performance, Mr Fitzpatrick still managed to secure a $3m contract with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Similarly, the New York Jets found $6m to sign Josh McCown, a 38-year-old journeyman who is now on his eighth team.

Perhaps the best point of comparison for Mr Kaepernick is Mike Glennon, who is now 27. Mr Glennon showed some promise as a starter for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers early in his first two years in the league, but had barely played since 2014. This offseason, the Chicago Bears signed Mr Glennon to a hefty $45m deal over three years, with $18.5m of it…

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