Blackballing Colin Kaepernick

Based on the write-up by Ken Belson and Mark Leibovich, "Inside the Confidential N.F.L. Meeting to Discuss National Anthem Protests, of last October's meeting between NFL owners and players, the players were trying to get the owners to drop their ban of Colin Kaepernick, while the owners were trying to get the players to "knock off the kneeling" for fear of what Trump might do next:

The players sounded aggrieved. After discussing a proposal to finance nonprofit groups to address player concerns, they wanted to talk about why Colin Kaepernick, the quarterback who started the anthem protests to highlight social injustice and police brutality against African-Americans, was, they believed, being blackballed by the owners. The owners sounded panicked about their business under attack, and wanted to focus on damage control.

“If he was on a roster right now, all this negativeness and divisiveness could be turned into a positive,” Philadelphia Eagles defensive lineman Chris Long said at the meeting.

Long said he did not wish to “lecture any team” on what quarterbacks to sign, but “we all agree in this room as players that he should be on a roster.” The owners’ responses were noncommittal. The Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie said that fighting for social justice is not “about one person.”

The New England Patriots owner Robert K. Kraft pointed to another “elephant in the room.”

“This kneeling,” he said.

“The problem we have is, we have a president who will use that as fodder to do his mission that I don’t feel is in the best interests of America,” said Kraft, who is a longtime supporter of Mr. Trump’s. “It’s divisive and it’s horrible.”

[snip]

After the Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross raised the idea of a “march on Washington” by N.F.L. players and owners, Eric Reid, Kaepernick’s former teammate and the first player to kneel alongside him, brought the discussion back to Kaepernick.

Reid, who attended the meeting wearing a Kaepernick T-shirt over his dress shirt and tie, said that his former teammate was being blackballed.

“I feel like he was hung out to dry,” Reid said of Kaepernick. “Everyone in here is talking about how much they support us.” The room fell quiet. “Nobody stepped up and said we support Colin’s right to do this. We all let him become Public Enemy No. 1 in this country, and he still doesn’t have a job.”

[snip]

Kaepernick’s name was not mentioned again. He continues to pursue a labor grievance accusing the owners of colluding to keep him out of the league. He remains unsigned. 

A couple of things are interesting here. One, no owner denies that a Kaepernick blacklist exists. It is a point seemingly granted by the owners. They appear to ignore the players' pleas. Two, nothing in the write-up pegs the ratings drop to the anthem protests. The ratings drop is mentioned in passing. The real concern of the owners is with Trump using the NFL as part of his pageantry of racial hatred to stir up the crackers.