Kaepernick to Raiders via blackmail?

Colin Kaepernick

The Fritz Pollard Alliance (and its namesake, were he alive) and about anybody else with a brain, a sense of racial justice and a follower of the NFL not named Roger Goodell thinks the East Bay Raiders of Las Vegas broke the Rooney Rule in hiring Jon Gruden to be their new head coach. The, "hey, Reggie McKenzie is our GM" or "hey, Tom Flores is the first minority coach to win the Super Bowl" or "hey, Jim Plunkett is the first minority quarterback to win the Super Bowl" count for nothing when Davis is on record as wanting Gruden and agreeing to fire Jack Del Rio only after an "I'm in" from Gruden and before interviewing anybody.

Well, via Tweetstorm as reported by USA Today, John Freeman of Bleacher Report says something is at work behind the scenes.

And that is that Goodell gave Mark Davis a Rooney Rule pass on the Gruden deal if —

The team signs iconic protest quarterback Colin Kaepernick.

From Goodell's POV, if this speculation by Freeman (along with any leads or tips he is getting) would make sense.

If Kaep signs, it undercuts the lawsuit he has against the NFL, Goodell surely figures. The NFL comes off, in his eyes, as looking better. And so do the Raiders.

Just a few problems with this.

One is that the Raiders already have a decent, starting, quarterback in Derek Carr. And, is Chucky Gruden going to give Kaep a fair shot?

That's just the playing side.

Outside the lines? 

This is tokenism, pure and simple.

It's just a high-salary way of treating Kaep as a Kentucky slave to be sold down the river to Mississippi.

Only Goodell would be dumb enough to think that Kaepernick would agree to this, or that this can even be proposed without the league getting an even bigger black eye on this issue among minorities than it already has.

Well, no, let me take this back.

Some owners, like a Jethro Jerry Jones, are as dumb as Goodell on an issue like this.

But, yeah, whether on his own or with feedback from the likes of Jethro Jerry, I can see Goodell actually pondering something like this.