eDave |
11-16-2019 04:01 PM |
From Reddit/r/nfl so take it for what it's worth:
I know someone that works for the NFL office in NYC. The person works in finance and isn’t related to this Kaep thing but he told me the gossip - so take this with a grain of salt:
This isn’t just a PR move. This is part of the settlement between Kaep and the league, and a goodwill gesture to the NFLPA. As part of the settlement, the NFL agreed to help Kaep find a spot on a team. After the settlement, the NFL called/reached out to every team (I think it was either Troy Vincent or his staff) to gauge interest in Kaep and let teams know that he was 100% cleared to play. All the teams passed at the time.
Kaeps team has been pestering the NFL that just reaching out wasn’t enough. The NFLs position is that ‘the nfl’ doesn’t have the power to simply get Kaep a job - that’s just not how it works. Kaep has also been getting the NFLPA to agitate on his behalf too.
The reason this came to a head is that in mid-Oct, the NFL submitted the first draft of the new CBA to the NFLPA. This whole special tryout came up for two reasons: 1) the NFL and the NFLPA both want to put the Kaep thing to bed, and 2) this was kind of a gesture of goodwill by the NFL to help the negotiations between the two parties. The first back and forth between the NFL and the NFLPA started poorly, so the idea was that this could be sort of a detente.
The idea that a few teams were interested but concerned about the blowback is silly - first, any team can call him any time of day, and second if you think that a tryout will generate blowback with your fan base, just wait until you sign him.
And FWIW, the consensus within the NFL is that it’s unlikely he’d get signed for several reasons.
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