The issue that led to the impasse was the NFL’s insistence that Kaepernick sign an “unusual” waiver. Kaepernick has reportedly been mulling a collusion lawsuit against the NFL. Contrary to popular belief, Kaepernick has never challenged the NFL in a court of law. While news outlets have called Kaepernick’s previous settlement a “lawsuit,” it was technically an NFL Players Association grievance that was settled through arbitration, as required by the NFLPA union contract.
ProFootballTalk’s Mike Florio, who is also a lawyer, reports:The three-page, 13-paragraph documents contains several specific provisions that could be relevant to the question of whether the NFL was trying to parlay the waiver into a release of any claims for collusion/retaliation that Kaepernick could make as a result of his ongoing unemployment by the league since settling his first collusion case in February…
If I were representing Kaepernick, and if the goal were to have a genuine workout aimed at enhancing his chances of being signed by an NFL team, I would have asked immediately for the document to be revised to specifically clarify that any and all potential employment rights would be preserved. If the league had refused, I wouldn’t have signed it, because the language leaves the door sufficiently ajar for a subsequent defense to a collusion/retaliation case that signing the waiver extinguished the claims.
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