The joint statement Friday by the NFL and lawyers for Colin Kaepernick and Eric Reid gives little more than the basics — almost nothing more, in fact. The key phrase, "The resolution of this matter is subject to a confidentiality agreement," leaves in the dark a lot about the settlement of the two protesting players' collusion grievances against the league, and leaves even more to the imagination.
The biggest questions remaining after what, technically, was a 16-month clash (and in reality dates to the August 2016 exhibition game at which Kaepernick first knelt to protest police brutality and racial oppression) don’t have immediate answers, but why let that stop us from trying to answer them now — or at least providing a road map to what’s next?
1. What, if anything, does this mean for the NFL?
The settlement and confidentiality agreement officially keep the league's dirt surrounding this case buried, but the assumption that the NFL had a ton to hide — enough to be judged guilty of colluding against two prominent players for exercising their constitutional rights — will follow it forever. The words and deeds of some team owners that became public along the way (the late Bob McNair and “the inmates running the prison”; Jerry Jones and his "toe on the line" demand) were damaging enough.
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This continues a streak of legal decisions that have looked more like losses for the league when its integrity and credibility are taken into account: Spygate, Deflategate, the handling of cases of violence against women from Ray Rice to Kareem Hunt, and the problematic concussion settlement. While regular-season television ratings bounced back after falling in 2017, the Super Bowl earlier this month not only had the smallest audience in 10 years but also a drop in viewership for the third straight year; coincidentally or not, that covers the same time period Kaepernick and other players were being demonized for protesting. The league had to navigate a boycott by potential halftime performers this year, as well; it remains to be seen whether that will continue a year from now in Miami.
The NFL also has to try to rebuild credibility after teams signed, played and started an endless list of quarterbacking mediocrities while keeping Kaepernick out. Even if Kaepernick is signed for next season (more on that later), the effect of two seasons of Nathan Petermans, Mark Sanchezes and Cody Kesslers won't disappear. The league's response to Reid's accusation of gratuitous in-season drug tests after his signing with the Panthers did it no favors in the credibility department, either.
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Along with all of that, problems such as Hunt's return to the league still hover.
2. How does this settlement impact the future of player protests and how the NFL handles them?
Reid and the Dolphins’ Kenny Stills are the two players who have knelt during the anthem before each game they've played. Reid made it clear when he signed late last September that he would continue to kneel, and this week he signed a new three-year contract with the Panthers (with the settlement in the works, in retrospect), so protesting likely remains his choice. Stills was the Dolphins’ nominee for the Walter Payton Man of the Year award for community service, and he told The Undefeated last month that he was prepared to be blackballed if teams chose to do so because of his kneeling.
The feud between Reid and the leaders of the Players Coalition will be worth watching. Reid and the Eagles' Malcolm Jenkins clashed verbally and almost physically over whether the coalition's deal with the league for support of the coalition's social activism was a quid pro quo on player protests.
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While there may never be a clear answer to that question, what is obvious is that the NFL sank exorbitant sums of money in recent years into trying to control players' activism. It really ought to examine what it got out of doing that.
The anthem policy the owners approved last May never left the limbo it was put into two months later after several owners and teams went rogue with their plans to punish players. The league would be on extremely shaky ground if it tried to reinstate the policy after this settlement; at the absolute best, it would be foolish to even think about doing it without negotiating with the players association. Logic dictates that teams won't interfere with player protests and that players will encounter no impediments if they choose to protest.
3. Will a team sign Kaepernick, or is his NFL career over?
The first team to consider is … yes, the Panthers, who ended Reid’s unemployment and who showed how much they need a competent backup for Cam Newton, especially post-shoulder surgery. Carolina's David Tepper, the newest NFL team owner, does not predate his colleagues' resistance to Kaepernick, was willing to sign Reid and not mandate that he stop protesting, and continues to prove he’s the anti-Jerry Richardson, who was forced to sell the team amid allegations of racist and sexist actions as owner.
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Tepper, however, is also one of the people who will split the cost of the settlement. Teams would seem less likely than ever, after shelling out something speculated to approach nine figures, to have anything to do with their nemesis of nearly three years. They also have continued to show that the support of one segment of their audience (anti-Kaepernick, anti-protest at all costs) means more to them than the support of other segments.
4. Where does Kaepernick go from here?
Kaepernick very likely saw the writing on the wall as the case wore on: No matter how it went, either with a judge’s ruling or a settlement, he was not going to be allowed to play in the NFL again. The money he would lose would represent more than the past two seasons; it would also cover what was potentially left of his career. His last game, the 2016 season finale, was two months past his 29th birthday; he’s 31 now and will turn 32 in November. Barring injury, he clearly had lots of time left to play at a market-value salary (the league average last season, according to Spotrac, was just under $8.3 million).
Now he has secured his bag from the league and he’s still a Nike spokesman who packed a powerful punch with his first campaign even though he wasn't an active player. The notion that he couldn’t be an effective or credible spokesman or activist without the platform of the NFL was disproven. He managed to make news days before the settlement was announced when Wisconsin legislators removed him from a list of people they honored for Black History Month.
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Contrary to various campaigns to discredit him, Kaepernick has never wavered from what he stated the first time he protested 30 months ago: "I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color," he told NFL Network. "To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way."
His NFL career is likely past tense, but the settlement and other resources provide him a lucrative present — and they put him in a position to be "bigger than football" for the foreseeable future.
