Buffalo Bills running back LeSean McCoy spoke out about the Colin Kaepernick mess. Kaepernick, 29, was unofficially blackballed for using the NFL as a platform for his social justice protests last season.
McCoy said the free agent quarterback is not worth the distraction he would bring to any team willing to sign him this late into the preseason (the regular season starts on Sept. 7).
“It’s a lot more than just he’s not on the team because he doesn’t want to stand for the national anthem,” McCoy said after team practice on Thursday. “That may have something to do with it, but I think also it has a lot to do with his play. I’m sure a lot of teams wouldn’t want him as their starting quarterback. That chaos that comes along with it, it’s a lot.”
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Kaepernick morphed into a social justice warrior only after he was benched by the San Francisco 49ers for his poor performance on the field in 2016.
He refused to stand up for the national anthem, saying he was protesting police brutality against unarmed black men. But many observers believe he was simply drawing attention to himself on the bench.
“As a team, trying to win and not have a distraction on the team, I just take that as a player – there’s certain players that could be on the team with big distractions,” said McCoy, “and there’s other players that it’s not good enough or not worth it. I think his situation is not good enough to have him on the team with all the attention that comes along with it.”
McCoy added that protesters such as those who rallied outside the NFL headquarters in NYC are just followers without any independent thought of their own.
“One thing I learned about just here in America is that people, they’re followers. There’s some that you may ask about these different topics, but they’ll say what they heard, not what they actually know, even with the Kaepernick situation,” McCoy said.
When asked how Kaepernick’s situation compared to Mike Vick, who was McCoy’s Philadelphia Eagles teammate after being released from prison, McCoy said, “He’s 10 times better than Kaepernick.”
“You’ll deal with that situation, that attention, that media aspect of it. The good, the bad attention you’ll get. Compared to Kaepernick, it’s like, he’s not really that good [enough] of a player to deal with.”
