Donald Trump Says Colin Kaepernick Should Be Allowed To Return To The NFL ‘If He’s Good Enough’
Donald Trump on Friday said that he’d be okay with Colin Kaepernick returning to the NFL “if he’s good enough,” Yahoo Sports reports. The statement is surprising, considering that just two years ago Trump said that “any son of a b***h” who doesn’t stand for the national anthem should be fired.
The National Football League’s preseason is just around the corner, and training camp is in full swing, which means that the minds of sports fans everywhere are on who will and won’t be on which team. One thing that’s been clear for the past couple of years, however, is that Colin Kaepernick has not been on any team. That’s because after the 2016-2017 season, after which he was a free agent, no team has wanted to sign him.
Whether or not that has to do with the fact that he started the trend of kneeling rather than standing for the national anthem in the 2016 preseason is the subject of a lawsuit against the NFL.
Meanwhile, the subject of Kaepernick’s possible return to the NFL was brought up to Donald Trump on Friday. This is because the president famously said two years ago that he thinks the NFL should fire any player who doesn’t stand for the national anthem.
So when asked about it on Friday, his answer was rather surprising.
“Only if he’s good enough,” Trump said.
Colin Kaepernick sends message to NFL with workout video saying he's been "denied work for 889 days" https://t.co/fveC2DIgld pic.twitter.com/XcU5QdrbkN
— CBS News (@CBSNews) August 8, 2019
Trump went on to say that he knows several owners of NFL teams, including New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, and that they would sign Kaepernick “in a heartbeat” if they thought he would win games. However, Trump cautioned that he does not want to see any team hire him as a “PR move.”
“If he’s good enough, he will be in,” Trump said.
Of course, whether or not Kaepernick will return to the NFL remains to be seen. The former San Francisco 49ers quarterback certainly thinks so. This week, he tweeted out a video of one of his workouts, in which he indicated that he’s “ready.”
5am. 5 days a week. For 3 years. Still Ready. pic.twitter.com/AGczejA1rM
— Colin Kaepernick (@Kaepernick7) August 7, 2019
As it turns out, though, Colin Kaepernick might very well be on the cusp of a return to the NFL. As reported earlier Friday by The Inquisitr, some in Philadelphia are suggesting that the Eagles hire Kaepernick as a backup quarterback. The team’s starting QB, Carson Wentz, is injury-prone, and his backup, Nate Sudfield, recently went down with a wrist injury. What’s more, none of the men currently on the Eagles roster who are in a position to be Wentz’s backup “inspire confidence,” as cited on the report.
