Three teams inquired about Colin Kaepernick. Unless they didn’t.
In response to the claim from Kaepernick adviser Harry Edwards that three teams inquired about Kaepernick, Kaepernick’s girlfriend has expressed skepticism.
Via NBC Sports Bay Area, Nessa Diab responded to the claims from Edwards by saying on Twitter, “What supposed ‘three’ teams? If this was really from his ‘adviser’ Colin would [have] known about it.”
Her message is the three inquiries to Edwards never became inquiries to Kaepernick, and that Edwards never shared with Kaepernick that inquiries had been made to Edwards.
The question of whether Edwards passed along the information and, if not, why he didn’t are questions best directed to Edwards. The questions for the teams that supposedly inquired is this: If, as to the question of whether Kaepernick wants to play, Edwards said, “You’ll have to ask him,” why didn’t you ask him?
A separate question for Edwards, of course, is why wouldn’t he know whether Kaepernick wants to play, if Edwards is truly advising Kaepernick? And that question could ultimately lead to an answer that Edwards isn’t really advising Kaepernick in the way it’s been portrayed.
Per multiple sources with knowledge of the situation, the truth in this case is that no inquiries have been made to Kaepernick or his representatives, and that Edwards seems to be injecting himself into the matter without actually being in the loop.
So why would teams talk to Edwards instead of Kaepernick? It’s likely part of the ongoing effort to tiptoe around the fringes, in the hopes of never learning anything that would undermine the assumptions being made about whether Kaepernick wants to play, about how much money he wants, about the role he expects, and about whether he can play. Instead of doing actual, reliable due diligence, teams are doing just enough to justify clinging to faulty assumptions and false narratives.
And then the teams are feeding those faulty assumptions and false narratives to the media, which is becoming increasingly complicit in spreading faulty assumptions and false narratives by neither calling B.S. on bad info nor getting the other side of the story before pushing the one that is adverse to Kaepernick.
The other side of the story on this latest wrinkle is clear and unmistakable: No one has inquired to Kaepernick or anyone authorized to speak on his behalf.