Pete Carroll Says Colin Kaepernick is 'Owed a Tremendous Amount' for His Silent Protest

Following a week of protests in response to George Floyd's death last Monday, some members of the NFL community are realizing how important Colin Kaepernick's protests were in 2016 and 2017. When Kaepernick became a free agent in 2017, he was never again signed by an NFL team and remains a free agent today.

Seahawks coach Pete Carroll believes that Kaepernick is "owed a tremendous amount" for his protest.

While he means well with these comments, it's too little too late for Carroll. In 2017, Carroll had this to say about Kaepernick, "He’s a starter in this league and I can’t imagine somebody won’t give him a chance to play." If he's a starter, why wouldn't you sign him as a backup? That would easily make him one of the best backups in the league, but the response would have been to negative to sign Kaepernick at the time.

In 2018, the Seahawks postponed a meeting with Kaepernick after he declined to say if he would stop kneeling for the national anthem if he were to be signed. Once again, the Seahawks had a chance to sign him, but it would have been too "controversial" to do so at the time.

Kaepernick's protest remains one of the most influential we have seen in sports history. He was also an extremely skilled quarterback and if not for his protest, would have undoubtedly been given a chance somewhere at this point.