Texans, NFL Cross the Kaepernick Point of No Return After Deshaun Watson Injury

Colin Kaepernick still not in the NFL (Tony Avelar/Associated Press)

Story by Bleach Report
Written by Mike Tanier

Whenever a starting quarterback gets injured these days, we cycle through the same battery of emotions:

* Shock that an exciting, important player's season ended so suddenly.

* Grief that we won't get to see him play for a long time.

* Depression over having to watch his backup for the rest of the season.

* Hope that his team will sign Colin Kaepernick, both so we can see him play and regain some hope that society hasn't become so polarized that we can't have nice things anymore.

* Anger when it pulls some rando from the quarterback scrap heap instead of Kaepernick.

* Frustration and boredom about rehashing the Kaepernick argument for the 10,000,000th time on social networks and in (ahem) columns.

*Acceptance that this is the world we live in.

We catapulted through those emotions quickly Thursday after Deshaun Watson tore his ACL during a routine practice: The odds-on favorite for Rookie of the Year, gone in a midweek flash? (SHOCK). Darn it. We were just learning to appreciate both his game and his potential. (GRIEF). Now Texans-Colts is Tom Savage vs. Jacoby Brissett, the NFL equivalent of watching paint dry (DEPRESSION). But maybe the Texans will (HOPE)…no, they signed Matt McGloin because he "knows the system" from his one season with Bill O'Brien at Penn State (ANGER).

So here comes the column, and I will keep it as brief and simple as possible.

The NFL is blackballing Colin Kaepernick. It is systematically preventing a highly qualified individual from pursuing his career for political reasons. It is denying fans the best possible entertainment experience, and teams that need quality quarterbacks but sign randos are not making the best possible effort to win a Super Bowl.

And they aren't even pretending to hide it anymore.

Maybe what the NFL is doing is not technically collusion. Maybe it is. But it is a clear violation of its own goals and its relationship with its audience.

The Watson injury is not the straw that broke the camel's back. There have been about a dozen last straws. Watson is the straw that buried all evidence of the camel's grave.

The fact that Bob McNair and the Texans did not even consider Kaepernick in the wake of McNair's inmates-running-the-prison remarks shows how little NFL owners care about the optics of the Kaepernick situation.

In the wake of his remarks and his pathetic I wasn't talking about you apology, McNair needs a scrap of public relations to make him sound like something other than those remarks conveyed.

So maybe he might consider a whispered back-channel overture toward the league's designated pariah, who might smell a publicity rat trap and decline, or might show up for a meeting that ends with a shrugging it wasn't the right fit but give us kudos for trying.

Nope. Kaepernick didn't even merit token workouts. Meanwhile, McGloin got snapped up in minutes after the Watson injury, as multiple sources reported. The O'Brien-Penn State connection was enough of a "football reason" for a guy who throws like a coaching assistant (I got to see a lot of him in Eagles camp in the offseason) to get an immediate job, while a player who came within a few goal-line plays of winning a Super Bowl doesn't even merit a phone call.
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