Colin Kaepernick Settles Collusion Case Against The NFL

Colin Kaepernick end­ed his legal bat­tles with the National Football League on Friday after ini­tial­ly accus­ing own­ers of col­lud­ing to keep him from play­ing over his nation­al anthem protest. In iden­ti­cal state­ments on Friday, the NFL and Kaepernick’s attor­ney, Mark Geragos, said the griev­ance was resolved. The NFL also said it had set­tled a sim­i­lar com­plaint filed by Eric Reid. “For the past sev­er­al months, coun­sel for Mr. Kaepernick and Mr. Reid have engaged in an ongo­ing dia­logue with rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the NFL,” the state­ment said. “As a result of those dis­cus­sions, the par­ties have decid­ed to resolve the pend­ing griev­ances. The res­o­lu­tion of this mat­ter is sub­ject to a con­fi­den­tial­i­ty agree­ment so there will be no fur­ther com­ment by any party.”

Kaepernick filed his griev­ance against the NFL in 2017, accus­ing team own­ers of vio­lat­ing the league’s col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing agree­ment by col­lud­ing to keep him off a team. Kaepernick sparked nation­al debate in 2016 when he knelt at a foot­ball game dur­ing the nation­al anthem. A San Francisco 49ers quar­ter­back at the time, Kaepernick described his act as a form of silent protest against police bru­tal­i­ty and racial injus­tices in the United States. Critics of the quar­ter­back, includ­ing President Donald Trump, accused him of dis­re­spect­ing the American flag and the mil­i­tary. Kaepernick opt­ed out of his con­tract with the 49ers at the end of that sea­son and entered free agency, which would allow him to play with oth­er teams. But he was unable to sign with a new team.

Reid, who joined Kaepernick in the kneel­ing protest, fared much the same when he became an unsigned free agent in 2018. He filed his own griev­ance against the NFL in May 2018. (Reid ulti­mate­ly signed a new con­tract with the Carolina Panthers in September.) The NFL Players Association released a state­ment on Friday applaud­ing the set­tle­ment.V
“We are not privy to the details of the set­tle­ment, but sup­port the deci­sion by the play­ers and their coun­sel,” the asso­ci­a­tion said. 
The NFL and Geragos did not spec­i­fy the terms of the agree­ment. Charles Robinson, a senior NFL reporter for Yahoo, not­ed in a tweet on Friday: “Sources pre­vi­ous­ly said Kaepernick would only with­draw if a lucra­tive set­tle­ment was secured.”

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