The NFL’s new National Anthem policy took a very obvious turn of events when it was clear that team owners and league officials were influenced by Donald Trump to make this decision to take a firm and interesting position on players’ protesting for social justice reform. Trump allegedly told Jerry Jones “Tell everybody, you can’t win this one,” urging (and in some cases threatening) every one to side with Trump on his MAGA view of anthem kneeling.
But luckily for Colin Kaepernick and Eric Reid, someone may be ready to testify towards collusion within the NFL that may be keeping the former 49ers from being picked up by new teams. On CNN Wednesday night, Kaepernick and Reid’s lawyer Mark Geragos was confident in this case taking a “dramatic turn” because “somebody has decided they were going to dime out the NFL for what they were doing”. Kaepernick last year alleging that the league violated their own Collective Bargain Agreement that forbids team owners from coming together to deprive a player of employment. Teams are fully permitted to of course not sign anyone they don’t want to, but only if they will they will not be an asset to the team, not for their own personal reasons. It seems that Geragos is saying that there is someone that works closely with all parties involved that can testify that these players are being kept away from the NFL because of their views and not their talent.
Earlier this week on the podcast The Straight Aim, host Amy Dash asked Geragos if he understood the burden of this case and how hard it was going to be to prove this case:
For collusion you would need to show that that fear actually influenced the owners by clear and convincing evidence.
To which Geragos responded:
Well, unless you’ve got an owner under penalty of perjury testifying that he changed his mind after he was told what Trump said.
Following the depositions of various team owners and Geragos confidently boasting about this witness, we will see if this person comes forward.