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Hacksaw’s Great Sports Weekend Podcast
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“CHARGERS-KAEPERNICK”

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Time changes things, how you look at people, what you observe, what a team needs.

We are a couple of weeks out from the start of the Chargers NFL season.

He is 7-years removed from what he did, and how society reacted.

Talking about the once famous 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, what he did on the field, what he did on the sidelines.

We’re talking about him kneeling on the sidelines during the National Anthem, that led to an outcry across America about his disrespect for the flag.

Now 7-years later, he reiterates how he still thinks he can play in the NFL, even at age 37.

The story comes front and center now with Jim Harbaugh confirming he spoke to Kaepernick about coming back to the NFL, as a possible coaching intern or an assistant coach on the Bolts staff.

But it’s also at this hour the Chargers may need a veteran QB-because of the poor play and the poor practices of Easton Stick and Luis Perez’s late arrival as a refugee from the XFL-UFL.

Justin Herbert is out with that sprained arch, and they may need an insurance policy QB, who can play.  Stick has not shown that.  Perez is an unknown at the next level.

Thus Kaepernick’s name may make sense as some sort of consultant.  Does it make sense as a potential backup quarterback after so many years away?

Harbaugh would have 3-weeks to get Kaepernick football ready-physically.  He knows some parts of the Harbaugh playbook from the 49ers era.  But it would take live fire action to get him into true game mode.  Where is that time going to come from?

Then of course there is the hidden story of how America reacted to him kneeling down back in the day.

I was aghast, his response to the flag-the anthem and what it stood for.  I remember thinking the America he was denouncing was the America that allowed him to make 14M-a year based on his talent.

The NFL could not intercede.  Then players sided with the Niners QB-kneeling with him in a show of support about racism and lack of equality.  Kneeling became universal.  Then standing arm in arm, players-coaches-even Jerry Jones became standard.

But the more and more I learned about Kaepernick, my feelings changed.  He is an intellect.  During his exile from the NFL, while he recovered from shoulder surgery, I learned about what he was doing in the inner cities in San Francisco, Oakland and even in Reno-where he played at Nevada-Reno.

The quarterback was financing after school lunch programs on his own out of his own pocket for young kids in all 3-cities.  Then I found he wrote a check for 1M-for the first pediatric hospital in Ghana-Africa.

This was more than TD passes, TV commercials, and being a star on a team.  It was a player doing alot as a person.

No one, aside from the Baltimore Ravens,would bring him in.  When it appeared he would sign with the Ravens, the deal fell apart, either over money, or interaction with a family member.

No one ever called again, though he continued to talk behind the scenes with NFL coaches and other players, and he continued doing things in all the special communities he cared about.

Now, this Chargers situation is front and center.

Can he play any longer?  I think it is a long shot.  Can he come in and work with young QBs, be a link to the Bolts new playbook, learn what it is like to be a coach?  Maybe.

NFL rosters are dotted with players who have been in real trouble, alcohol, guns, domestic issues, chemicals.  They served their penalty and are back in the league.  Kaepernick paid a different type of price with his public stance on racial inequality.

Time has passed, minds have been changed.  Maybe it’s time to give the QB an opportunity, to see where the road leads.

The Chargers-Kaepernick linkage seems possible because it’s a known coach with a former quarterback he believed in.

It’s also a time of concern because beyond Justin Herbert, the Bolts seem in trouble at the most important position in the NFL.

A most unique 2nd chance, not for someone who did anything wrong, something that might have been interpreted wrongly.

See what Kaepernick has to offer, as a player, former player, maybe a consultant.  What do the Chargers have to lose?

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