N/S [Merged] Kaep withdraws/Settles [mod edit] collusion case (1 Viewer)

Nope. You're using some serious mental gymnastics to make this appear like anything more than what it actually is, the NFL breaking precedence and settling with a player. This speaks volumes. The NFL simply doesn't do business like that. They know how this would appear to legal analysts and still decided it was best to settle.
Wrong. For one thing, it's hardly a precedent, even within the scope of this very subject. The league awarded the player's coalition around 90 million without even being sued. For another, it doesn't take a great deal of mental gymnastics to reflect on a fairly straightforward outcome when the media and pretty much everyone else declared that a tremendous amount of legal gymnastics would be required to have a chance to win the collusion case. And to be clear, the case was not won, it was settled. The league was the defendant here, not the plaintiff. Outside of the case being dropped or dismissed, their best possible outcome was legal fees and having some of their owners dragged through the mud, so they just decided to put a tourniquet on the whole thing to make it go away. And it's over.
 
I don’t disagree with you that teams have a prerogative to not sign a guy for reasons that aren’t just football and those things matter. I was never saying that a team can’t refuse to sign a guy for those reasons and that’s not collusion. Collusion in this context is when the employers in a limited field decide together or act in concert to close off access to employment - blackballing has been held to be an anti-trust and labor law violation.

I’m also not saying that I think there was collusion, I really don’t know. But it seems like you’re continuing to argue that he didn’t have a case - but you don’t have the full set of evidence. And the league thought there was enough league interest in settling it that they decided to do so. Maybe there was some evidence of collusion - none of us knows. But you certainly can’t keep saying there wasn’t, any more than someone else could insist there was.

Considering the NFL decided to not ride it out and would rather pull out the checkbook, I’d guess that their case wasn’t as strong as they hoped and there likely was concrete evidence of at minimum, a handful of teams colluding against him.

However, the notion that the whole League colluded to keep him out is just false. 3 teams were going to take on his services (2 of them after the protesting) and he either refused to take a paycut (Denver), sign as a backup (Seattle) or someone in his camp screwed up his opportunity for employment there (Baltimore) . That makes 4 teams total (including the 49ers) that had no desire for his services after talking with his camp, 1/8th of the League. Most of remaining 24 teams are seeing that (especially ones with concrete starting QB’s) and thinking they absolutely do not need that headache in their organization. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire, and 1/8th of the League is smoking pretty heavily.

I think if there was collusion (and their likely was), it was a combination of teams not wanting to take on the fan backlash he’d certainly bring (even as a starter and definitely not as a backup) and he/his own camp’s demands and antics and not solely for his protesting.

If it was truly because of the latter, Reid never would’ve been signed, Chris Long never would’ve been signed (twice), Vaccaro never would’ve been signed, the Eagles wouldn’t have traded for Bennett, ect.

Also considering your legal background, maybe you can clarify something about this for me. In the article about collusion in the CBA, there’s this section about damages being paid (the settlement)...

Section 14. No Reimbursement: Any damages awarded pursuant to Section 9 above must be paid by the individual Clubs found liable and those Clubs may not be reim- bursed or indemnified by any other Club or the NFL.

Would that section I bolded mean that only the clubs found to have colluded against Kaepernick be liable for each paying a portion of that settlement, correct?

I’ll link it below.

NFL-NFLPA 2011 CBA on page 123
 
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Considering the NFL decided to not ride it out and would rather pull out the checkbook, I’d guess that their case wasn’t as strong as they hoped and there likely was concrete evidence of at minimum, a handful of teams colluding against him.

However, the notion that the whole League colluded to keep him out is just false. 3 teams were going to take on his services (2 of them after the protesting) and he either refused to take a paycut (Denver), sign as a backup (Seattle) or someone in his camp screwed up his opportunity for employment there (Baltimore) . That makes 4 teams total (including the 49ers) that had no desire for his services after talking with his camp, 1/8th of the League. Most of remaining 24 teams are seeing that (especially ones with concrete starting QB’s) and thinking they absolutely do not need that headache in their organization. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire, and 1/8th of the League is smoking pretty heavily.

I think if there was collusion (and their likely was), it was a combination of teams not wanting to take on the fan backlash he’d certainly bring (even as a starter and definitely not as a backup) and he/his own camp’s demands and antics and not solely for his protesting.

If it was truly because of the latter, Reid never would’ve been signed, Chris Long never would’ve been signed (twice), Vaccaro never would’ve been signed, the Eagles wouldn’t have traded for Bennett, ect.

Also considering your legal background, maybe you can clarify something about this for me. In the article about collusion in the CBA, there’s this section about damages being paid (the settlement)...



Would that section I bolded mean that only the clubs found to have colluded against Kaepernick be liable for each paying a portion of that settlement, correct?

I’ll link it below.

NFL-NFLPA 2011 CBA on page 123

Not necessarily - no club was “found liable”, so that section could be relevant as to the settlement, or it might not be.
 
How is he a sellout? The lawsuit was trying to get damages and prove that the NFL had blackballed him. This case was never going to go to trial. The NFL could not let that happen. The NFL settling is admission of a weak case. He got his money. That is literally what he was fighting for. He was never trying to take the league down.

I thought this was about rhe racial injustice by cops and the racist white NFL owners.

The NFL didn’t bow down to anything. They gave him money to go away. He took the money and left quietly. That’s called selling out.

I look forward to hearing what Charlemagne the god has to say about this in the am.
 
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Not necessarily - no club was “found liable”, so that section could be relevant as to the settlement, or it might not be.

I see. I figured after reading that that any clubs that were proven to have colluded would've been required to foot the bill for the damages paid instead of all 32 teams, including clubs that weren't found to be at fault.

Only reason I read that part of the CBA was to see if there may've been any punishments imposed on our organization considering we certainly weren't in the market for a starting QB even though we did sign Chase Daniel, claimed Taysom Hill off waivers, and traded for Teddy Bridgewater to fill out our QB roster.
 
Maybe. Or maybe his case wasn’t actually that good after the evidence, and taking some money with a strict confidentiality was better than the odds of winning with the arbitrator. We just don’t know.
The NFL went to full adjudication in Superior Court against the Patriots in DeflateGate. They took it all of the way to the end. I SERIOUSLY doubt that that they'd back down without something seriously damming.
 
Breaking news... Billion Dollar Corporation dishes out hush money.... Athlete 100% dedicated to a cause, takes the money and runs.... More at 11!

*shocked*
 
Breaking news... Billion Dollar Corporation dishes out hush money.... Athlete 100% dedicated to a cause, takes the money and runs.... More at 11!

*shocked*

How has reading comprehension gotten so bad in this country? Kaep settled the collusion case with the NFL. He can still speak about his cause. He can voice his concerns and raise awareness about police brutality. If he can ever make it back to the NFL, he can still kneel if he wants. His stance was not about collusion. He can't talk about the terms of the deal. And guess what? He wasn't publically talking about collusion anyway. The Nike deal wasn't about collusion it was about taking a stand against police brutality. He wasn't kneeling because of NFL collusion.
 
How has reading comprehension gotten so bad in this country? Kaep settled the collusion case with the NFL. He can still speak about his cause. He can voice his concerns and raise awareness about police brutality. If he can ever make it back to the NFL, he can still kneel if he wants. His stance was not about collusion. He can't talk about the terms of the deal. And guess what? He wasn't publically talking about collusion anyway. The Nike deal wasn't about collusion it was about taking a stand against police brutality. He wasn't kneeling because of NFL collusion.

While his stance isn't about collusion, his lawsuit was. And ultimately, one doesn't happen without the other. Now that the agreement is a non-disclosure one, it's unlikely we'll know how much evidence either party has.

I think both side probably had a certain amount of evidence, but neither side would be considered open and shut cases.

I don't blame Kaep for settling. Doesn't make him a sellout. Likely just means he and his attorneys counts the costs and risks of continuing and determined that it was time to cut bait. Nothing wrong with that. It's smart strategy.

Cases get settled out of court a large percentage of the time. Kaep gets to move on and can still do what he wants. But he's likely done with football. He probably could have accepted offers to play a few years ago if he really wanted to play. But he either wanted too much money or didn't want to be muzzled. Possibly both.

Curious to see if he tries to play again or if he's truly done.
 
How has reading comprehension gotten so bad in this country? Kaep settled the collusion case with the NFL. He can still speak about his cause. He can voice his concerns and raise awareness about police brutality. If he can ever make it back to the NFL, he can still kneel if he wants. His stance was not about collusion. He can't talk about the terms of the deal. And guess what? He wasn't publically talking about collusion anyway. The Nike deal wasn't about collusion it was about taking a stand against police brutality. He wasn't kneeling because of NFL collusion.

No one said he couldn't continue to stand for his cause... No one said he shouldn't if that's what he chooses to do....

I read perfectly fine.

My point was... this news comes of no surprise...

A powerful corporation with endlessly deep pockets put a price on his silence... and he obviously had a price to sell his silence on the matter of collusion...

His "cause" is/was social injustice... his collusion case was based on the premise that the NFL was excluding him from work based on his "cause"... they are directly correlated... and he had a price tag on it.... which the NFL paid.

(nothing wrong with that, but that's what it boils down to IMO)

What am I missing?
 
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The only problem I have with any of this has nothing to do with Kaep.

Eric Reid went on a week long rant talking about how Malcolm Jenkins was a traitor and a snitch for compromising with the NFL.
Jenkins had told the NFL they would stand for the Anthem IF the NFL would donate a set amount to set up programs to help the community and also commit to helping the players open a dialogue with local law enforcement to get to the root of the problem and help change the culture.

To me Jenkins did more to actually try and create progress. Reid just jumped on Kap's coattails and had no right to call out Jenkins in my opinion. Then proceeds to settle with the NFL which helps no one but Reid.
 
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Ehhh....no. Fighting that case, and others such as the Deflategate case, did not involve dragging some of the league's owners through aggressive discovery hearings for an end goal to simply be held not liable. Not even in the same universe.

The reality is that Kaepernick might not have had any credible, hard evidence at all, and that whatever he had was circumstantial at best. Even the hard-left media admitted from the very beginning that his claims would be next to impossible to prove. The owners likely just decided to save the legal fees, inconvenience to their schedules, and having to answer other potentially sensitive questions by paying this clown to go away. The confidentiality clause alone was likely worth the money, because CK can't open his beak about collusion anymore, ever. Not now, not if/when he signs with another team, not after his realistic playing days are over and he wants to write a book. He's been silenced. And there no Pandora's box to worry about here, because the whole kneeling during the national anthem thing has already had its 15 minutes and nobody gives a crap anymore. Even the media doesn't really bother covering it at this point.

I'm not sure what you are even talking about here....but if you think this was about merely saving legal fees, inconvenience and having to answer "potentially sensitive questions" then I think you are being a bit naive. My example of how far the NFL will go to make or save a buck stands as a perfect example of this I believe.

Forget collusion, as it was pointed out earlier in this thread the discovery portion of a trial could inflict serious damage to the NFL, it supports what many of us already believe, they have so much to hide that the risk is too great even in a case that is most likely winnable.
 
I'm not sure what you are even talking about here....but if you think this was about merely saving legal fees, inconvenience and having to answer "potentially sensitive questions" then I think you are being a bit naive. My example of how far the NFL will go to make or save a buck stands as a perfect example of this I believe.

Forget collusion, as it was pointed out earlier in this thread the discovery portion of a trial could inflict serious damage to the NFL, it supports what many of us already believe, they have so much to hide that the risk is too great even in a case that is most likely winnable.

You disagree with my opinion in the first paragraph and then describe exactly what I am talking about in your second paragraph. Thank you for reinforcing my point. The discovery hearings could have potentially veered way off the path of proving collusion and into a cesspool of other things that the NFL doesn't want to talk about. Any decent lawyer could skirt around the rules to use other dirty deeds to try to impeach the testimony of those who testify on behalf of the NFL. You think the league wants one of these owners getting roasted on the stand about God-only-knows-what? If you don't see why the NFL would want to avoid that, then you are being naive.

I stand by my take: the settlement likely had little to do with CK being able to prove squat as it pertains to collusion. The NFL threw chump change at him to silence him about this forever and avoid a potentially embarrassing PR disaster. They're probably quite happy with the outcome given the stakes involved, and it's unlikely they'll have to deal with the likes of CK moving forward.
 
The only problem I have with any of this has nothing to do with Kaep.

Eric Reid went on a week long rant talking about how Malcolm Jenkins was a traitor and a snitch for compromising with the NFL.
Jenkins had told the NFL they would stand for the Anthem IF the NFL would donate a set amount to set up programs to help the community and also commit to helping the players open a dialogue with local law enforcement to get to the root of the problem and help change the culture.

To me Jenkins did more to actually try and create progress. Reid just jumped on Kap's coattails and had no right to call out Jenkins in my opinion. Then proceeds to settle with the NFL which helps no one but Reid.

Another interesting aspect of Reid's involvement is that, unlike Kap, he DID re-sign with an NFL team, and in fact just received a $24M extension from Carolina 3 days before this settlement was announced.

I have to wonder if these facts precipitated a settlement on terms MORE favorable to the NFL than many might expect. It's hard to support the argument that the NFL colluded against both Reid and Kapernick when Reid is making starter money again.

Ironically Kap might have lost a little bit of leverage once Reid got back in the league.

But who knows for sure (except for the parties and their lawyers).
 
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You disagree with my opinion in the first paragraph and then describe exactly what I am talking about in your second paragraph. Thank you for reinforcing my point. The discovery hearings could have potentially veered way off the path of proving collusion and into a cesspool of other things that the NFL doesn't want to talk about. Any decent lawyer could skirt around the rules to use other dirty deeds to try to impeach the testimony of those who testify on behalf of the NFL. You think the league wants one of these owners getting roasted on the stand about God-only-knows-what? If you don't see why the NFL would want to avoid that, then you are being naive.

I stand by my take: the settlement likely had little to do with CK being able to prove squat as it pertains to collusion. The NFL threw chump change at him to silence him about this forever and avoid a potentially embarrassing PR disaster. They're probably quite happy with the outcome given the stakes involved, and it's unlikely they'll have to deal with the likes of CK moving forward.

I'm sorry but I think most would agree that your original statement

"The owners likely just decided to save the legal fees, inconvenience to their schedules, and having to answer other potentially sensitive questions by paying this clown to go away. "

hardly translates to your following statement:

"The discovery hearings could have potentially veered way off the path of proving collusion and into a cesspool of other things that the NFL doesn't want to talk about. Any decent lawyer could skirt around the rules to use other dirty deeds to try to impeach the testimony of those who testify on behalf of the NFL. You think the league wants one of these owners getting roasted on the stand about God-only-knows-what? "

So you either purposely changed the narrative or you didn't communicate your original statement very well...either way...I guess we agree on that point....
 

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