PITTSBURGH — We all should have a friend like Jim Harbaugh.
I need to say upfront I don't especially care for Harbaugh. He strikes me as being pompous and self-centered. I don't like Michigan football, period, and never have since I was in college at Northwestern. Almost everyone who goes or has gone to school in the Big Ten will tell you Michigan fans are the most arrogant in sports.
But I have to admit I admire what Harbaugh is doing for Colin Kaepernick.
Harbaugh hasn't forgotten that Kaepernick led their San Francisco 49ers team to Super Bowl XLVII after the 2012 season. That was a few years before the NFL blackballed Kaepernick for taking a knee to protest racial injustice and police brutality. Now, Harbaugh is trying, against overwhelming odds, to get Kaepernick a tryout with an NFL club, any NFL club. He invited Kaepernick to be an honorary captain at the Michigan spring game on Saturday and had him speak to the team. He gave Kaepernick a stage at the Big House at halftime of the game to throw for NFL scouts. He was there to hug Kaepernick after he completed a couple of passes of about 60 yards to end the workout.
That's a friend.
"Coach Harbaugh, he's always been phenomenal to me," Kaepernick said.
Kaepernick, who hasn't played in the NFL since 2016, should never have been banned from the league for his peaceful protests. Roger Goodell practically has said as much. Clearly, the NFL caved under pressure from President Donald Trump, who said, famously, at a rally in Huntsville, Ala., in September 2017, "Wouldn't you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, you'd say, 'Get that son of a bitch off the field right now. Out! He's fired.'"
Goodell apologized to Kaepernick in August 2020, not long after the NFL settled a collusion lawsuit with him.
"'I wish we had listened earlier, Kaep, to what you were kneeling about what you were trying to bring attention to,' " Goodell told former NFL linebacker Emmanuel Acho on the YouTube show "Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man." "We would have benefited from that, absolutely.
"It is not about the flag. The message here, and what our players are doing, is being mischaracterized. These are not people who are unpatriotic. They're not disloyal. They're not against our military. What they were trying to do was exercise their right to bring attention to something that needs to get fixed."
In that same interview, Goodell mentioned the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin in May 2020.
"It was horrific to see that play out on the screen," Goodell said. "There was a part of me that said, 'I hope people realize that's what the players were protesting.' And that's what's been going on in our communities. And that's where we should have listened sooner."
It's hard to imagine Kaepernick getting another chance to play in the NFL. He might have had the opportunity had Harbaugh landed the Minnesota Vikings job Harbaugh pursued in February but that went to Los Angeles Rams offensive coordinator Kevin O'Connell. But now? No. For one thing, even teams desperate for a quarterback — the Steelers before signing Mitch Trubisky? — are unlikely to give him a tryout for fear of a backlash from their fans who still don't understand his protests. For another, it's been a long time since he's played a football game. He's 34.
Kaepernick, who has been working out with NFL wide receivers and drawing positive reviews from them, spoke with Jeanna Trotman of Detroit's WXYZ on Saturday. He was asked the message he would like to send to NFL clubs.
"'I can help make you a better team. I can help you win games,'" Kaepernick said.
"I know right now the situation likely won't allow me to come in and step into a starting role. I know I'll be able to work my way to that, though, and show that very quickly.
"We still can get out there and sling it. To the teams that have questions, more than anything I would say, 'I'd like to come in for a workout. I'd love to sit down with you and have that conversation about how I can help you be a better team.' "
It would be nice if Kaepernick gets a shot.
Harbaugh is standing by, ready to offer his endorsement to any NFL team that calls.
