Has Kaepernick Won?
"Kaepernick alone could have been cut and blackballed, but with a dozen or so players, many of them stars, behind him, the league has been forced to bend in his direction," Deadspin writes, and Dave Zirin agrees.
That's a remarkable achievement in a league hostile to individuality, much less the kind of outspoken social activism the 49ers quarterback embraced: "When a player takes a stand the way Kaepernick did, the tangible impact around the league isn’t just that he pissed off a former Texans backup or some Twitter eggs. It’s that he chipped away at something larger and much more frustrating: football’s brassbound culture about players speaking their minds." League owners are so fragile when it comes to team image that one exec said front offices haven't despised a player so much since Rae Carruth. Rather out of proportion, considering Kaepernick hasn't hired a hit man to kill his partner and their unborn child like Carruth did.