Now that the Colin Kaepernick's grievance case against the National Football League is over, John and Hugh wanted to get the opinion of one of the nation's top legal experts, Sports Illustrated's Michael McCann.
While he couldn't provide insight into the actual payoff to the former Niners QB and Panthers safety Eric Reid, McCann did say it would be very costly to those involved if the information was ever made public.
“We’ve seen ranges from $20 million to $80 million," he said of the potential settlement amount. "That just illustrates that no one really knows. It's because there's a non-disclosure part to the settlement that will contractually prevent the lawyers who worked on this case from revealing what the amount is or any other details. If they break that, they could be sued for breach of contract or they could get in trouble with the state bar.
Did the resolution come because of the upcoming trial and details becoming a part of open record?
“Many of them (owners) have already been questioned, under oath, by lawyers for Kaepernick; that there's already a series of transcripts from those depositions. I am speculating here, but I'm imagine the arbitrator, Stephen Burbank, let both sides know that a decision was imminent and that if they were going to reach a deal, it had to have been now."
"Even if the NFL won, the decisison by Burbank could've referred to testimony by owners, league officials and coaches and general managers that might've reflected poorly on them. I think what the NFL was really trying to buy was preventing that type of information from coming public."
Was it a "loss" for the NFL?
“I think it’s certainly uncharacteristic of the NFL given that this league, especially with individual player disputes, never settles. We saw that with Tom Brady. We say that with Adrian Peterson. We saw that with Ezekiel Elliott. In all of those cases, the NFL not only fully arbitrated but went to court, and appellate court to try to win; and ultimately winning on each. So this is a league that really doesn’t cut deals. In that respect, I think it's a sign that the NFL was worried about whatever Kaepernick's lawyers found."
"Obviously we don't know the financial amount but the fact that they got the NFL to settle is a sign that Kaepernick succeeded to some respect. The league also wins in a sense in that it avoids the worst-case outcome."
Will he ever play again in the NFL?
"Yeah, I think it's possible."
"With the collusion grievance over, I think that removes sort of a cloud over him. Because now teams don't have to worry that if they reach out to him, that it could wind up before the arbitrator because it would be evidence. I've got to think that there are some owners out there that are willing to look past controversy and are willing to look at their win and loss record and say, 'Do we really want to have these quarterbacks who are inferior to him trying to play for their team?'
