We have reached an exciting new level of sports-as-media-culture hell when Colin Kaepernick’s attorney is encroaching on Peter King’s turf.
Mark Geragos, who is representing Kaepeernick in his fascinating collusion case against the NFL office and owners, told . . . well, teased, actually . . . TMZ Sports that two NFL team COULD be INTERESTED in signing Kaepernick as a backup quarterback.
And if that’s not vague enough for you, the teams he hinted at are coached/general managed by two people who would almost surely find the idea horrifying.
The first, amazingly, is the Oakland For The Time Being Raiders, and the only suggestion Geragos actually made is “If Al Davis were still alive . . .” It's as though he is suggesting that the only reason Kaepernick isn't playing now is because Mark Davis hasn't thought of it.
This isn’t just taking the business of NFL nuggets to a new level, it is involving the realm of the dead. I mean, would Art Rooney sign Kaepernick? George Halas? Paul Brown? Curly Lambeau?
Okay, Rooney maybe. He was a gambler, and he understood odds, but definitely none of the other three.
But wait, now they’ve got me thinking about Kaepernick backing up Derek Carr on a team coached by Jon Gruden, who found Khalil Mack too much of a maverick. My depression at being sucked in so easily is already profound.
The other team, though, is even more bizarre, in that it is the New England Patriots. That’s the team that has Bill Belichick, who was apparently pushed into trading Jimmy Garoppolo to San Francisco at owner Bob Kraft’s behest, and now one (or maybe both) of them has interest in Kaepernick?
Now we’ve reached skull-melt territory. But it's an NFL nugget, damn it, and it must be taken . . . seriously?
And that’s the real story here, because there is so little to go on: Kaepernick might be interesting as a potential employee by one of the two least likely teams based solely on the say-so of Kaepernick’s lawyer.
Of course it should happen. It would break the country. Hell, Kaepernick should end up signing with BOTH teams and back up Derek Carr and Tom Brady in alternate weeks for full bi-coastal culturageddon.
Sadly, though, we're not there yet. We're not even remotely close to the outer suburbs of there. There may not even be a there to get to. So no, this isn’t actually news, not yet, but it is data that makes you think how bizarre it would be if it ever got to be news. It is pre-news, without anything more than a very interested party saying that someone could be considering something that might happen.
And the confirmation? Geragos saying Kaepernick and his girlfriend watch the games on Sunday because they like football. And the second source? “Stay tuned.”
As deliciously weird as the idea of Kaepernick the Raider or Kaepernick or the Patriot might be, it is nothing next to the genesis of the idea. There are a thousand reasons why this is nonsense, a thousand more why this isn’t actually a good idea for Kaepernick, let alone either team. And there's only one reason why it should happen -- because if it did, America would fall through the earth's crust.
And neither of those is as weird as the ease with which the whole loony idea can bore its way into your head. And it isn’t because you’re gullible. It’s because anything is possible in post-apocalyptic American sports, and you dismiss the seemingly too ridiculous to consider at your own peril.
Kaepernick the Raider/Kaepernick the Patriot is a veritable smorgasbord of issues that logically shouldn't be but in Geragos' playful scheme could easily be triggered. There's a legal angle -- what happens to the lawsuit? There's a political angle -- would Donald Trump spontaneously combust in political-base-energizing glee? There's a cultural angle -- would Meek Mill have to pull his Kaepernick song now that it's been rendered outdated? There's a coaching angle -- would Gruden and Belichick actually have to sit down in their respective offices and argue with themselves about the pure insanity of Colin Kaepernick on their rosters? There's even a gerontology issue -- can 32 billionaires, most of them well north of 70, survive brain explosions?
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And there's even a health and safety issue -- would Colin Kaepernick actually go back into the arena of madness to compete with players who either want to lionize him or separate him from his vertebrae? It's the mutant sporting development of the decade.
And it's all brought to you -- so far, anyway -- by Mark Geragos, the man who with a single impish conversation with a TMZ drone out-King-ed King, out-Schefter-ed Schefter and blew up every daily NFL chat show currently existent.
Best of all, it doesn't even have to be remotely close to being true. So while it must happen -- and yes, with Kaepernick playing for both Oakland and New England, because if you're going to go big on the bizarre, go galactic -- it almost surely won't.
But it is nice to know our brains can go there on a simple hint of suggestion. Nice, and a little bit humiliating.
