![Colin Kaepernick Megan Rapinoe]()
Gonna just come out of retirement and make the Olympic team, eh?
Of course Colin Kaepernick isn't really "retired." The former quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers still comes out every year or so and says he wants to be in the NFL, and people start claiming that he deserves another chance despite the fact that he was a fairly average quarterback the last time he played - and that was in 2016.
Kaepernick of course, became the face of the Black Lives Matter movement when he was the first NFL player to kneel for the national anthem, a move that thrust him into the spotlight and which he claims cost him his football career when he was released by the 49ers at the end of the 2016 season.
The quarterback would later sue the NFL and reach a confidential settlement, while the league set up a workout for him back in 2019 and invited all 32 NFL teams - which Kaepernick ended up cancelling just before the scheduled workout.
More recently, Kaepernick reportedly was seeking a guaranteed $20,000,000 per season contract with either the XFL or the AAF, but obviously that didn't happen because that was far beyond what those leagues paid their players. (The XFL paid quarterbacks $250,000 per season, while the AAF paid $250,000 for a three year contract).
And in 2022, Kaepernick worked out with the Las Vegas Raiders, though the team didn't end up signing him to a contract.
But still, Kaepernick says that he's continued to work out so that he's ready if the call ever comes.
Well Megan Rapinoe has an idea for a potential landing spot for the former NFL quarterback: On the US flag football Olympic team.
During an episode of her podcast
Love & Basketball with her fiance Sue Bird, the former US Women's National Team soccer player said that during a recent conversation with Kaepernick, he expressed interest in joining Team USA for flag football in 2028 - and she was all for it, despite her claiming that she believes he's still being blackballed by the NFL:
"He's interested in LA 2028...
He would be so good in flag football. I mean, he would be so good in the NFL. Let's just be clear about that. He's still being blackballed by the NFL...
I think it would be really cool for him to play flag football in 2028...I would love to see Colin be able to represent America in an Olympics. I believe that would be an unbelievably special moment.
He's my flagbearer. I think that would be really incredible to have that representation of America also be front and center at an Olympics. That would be really cool."
The sport is being added to the Olympics for the first time in 2028, when the games will be held in Los Angeles. And there's already been a lot of discussion about the team after flag football players seemed to get their feathers ruffled over NFL players wanting to come in and represent the United States.
Flag football quarterback Darrell Doucette recently spoke to
Bleacher Report about the matter, and said that NFL players need to pump the brakes thinking that they can just step in and represent Team USA in flag football at the Olympics:
“I think it’s disrespectful that they just automatically assume that they’re able to just join the Olympic team because of the person that they are—they didn’t help grow this game to get to the Olympics. Give the guys who helped this game get to where it’s at their respect.”
Well if it's disrespectful to think that a quarterback like Patrick Mahomes, who is at the top of his game right now, can come in and make the team, I wonder what he thinks about Rapinoe's comments.
